Jocund Hut
My neighbourhood in downtown Dalian has a new little teashop that has jauntily named itself “Jocund Hut”. That’s a pretty funky name and I guess the owner got that obscure and odd adjective from an electronic dictionary, and I also wonder how many native speakers – even – know what it means.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone actually utter the word, but I know it well coz Wordsworth used it in “Daffodils”, one of the most famous poems in the English language. When speaking of the gleeful dancing daffydillies he emoted
A poet could not but be gay, / In such a jocund company
which couples, so to speak, an archaic usage of “gay” with our equally archaic “word for today.”
And I also half-remembered Conrad using it in “Heart of Darkness” for a grimly humoured description of some skulls on poles, but when I checked the quote I found
a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling, too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber.
so it was jocose, not jocund. And who the hell uses “jocose” these days? it must be even more obscure than “jocund.” I guess that’s why it’s not a “Jocose Hut” round the corner from where I live.
And then I also remembered that English was Conrad’s third language and that he was wont to use it somewhat eccentrically from time to time; a habit that led to literary critic FR Leavis’ catty comment that “Conrad’s sea smells of Roget’s Thesaurus”.
Anyways, maybe Chinese and Japanese electronic dictionaries are going to resurrect a few long dormant and/or incredibly obscure words and blazon them on the shopfronts and T-shirts of the Pacific rim. And then we English teachers over here will have to find out what they mean.
Have a jocund day!
K