Releasing, Relaxing and Relishing Rhyme and Reason

 

People like to release animals. They release lions onto the savannah, or orcas into the ocean, or beavers into the wild, or organ-grinders' monkeys onto the street, or bulls into china-shops. 

But I like to release books. I like to think of them creeping, taking their first little steps, sniffing the air of the market place, and then galloping off into the wild, neighing proudly. This is why I have just released a new book: Rhyme and Reason: A Short History of Poetry and People (for People who don't Usually Read Poetry). It's the best book I've written, and it is even now crawling timidly around the bookshops of Britain.

The English word release comes from the French relasser, which meant something like relinquish, abandon, leave behind. This seems strangely appropriate, as it really is what we do with tigers and orcas and books about the history of English poetry. It is mine no more. It is gone. The writing is done. The bull belongs to the china-shop now, and not to me any more. 

Relasser comes from the Latin verb relaxare which meant, unsurprisingly, to relax, to loosen, to stretch out, which is what I am doing now, because relaxing and releasing are, etymologically, the same thing.

All that is left is a taste, a scent of what I have done. And relaxare gave us a word for that too. The French took the word twice, and the second time they made it into relais, which is in the name of various restaurants like Le Relais de Venise, which means the taste of Venice. But relais sounded too French, so we changed it to relish. Then we made it a verb. So that Shakespeare could have this lovely bit in Two Gentlemen of Verona, when one character asks another how he knows that he's been secretly in love:

Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms, like a malecontent; to relish a love-song, like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas.

Then in around 1800 we began to call sauces relishes, and then I decided to relish a relaxing release of my new book (Did I mention it? I forget) and it all relates, etymologically, to the word laxative.

Not that I'm relaxing entirely. In fact, I shall be hot-footing it up to Glasgow on the 15th of November to talk at the Aye Write Festival. If you'd like to come along, there's a link here.

And on the 17th of November I shall be at Serenity Booksellers in Stockport, tickets are available here. 

And anybody can of course purchase Rhyme and Reason. It is, I hear, the perfect Christmas present, pre-Christmas present, birthday present, and generally, it's very presentable. 

You can buy it at your local bookshop, or you can get it online here. 

The Inky Fool attempts a book-signing