Jamieson, Jargons, Jangles, and Jokes: Hugh MacDiarmid and Dictionaries

Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve) used dictionaries in the composition of his ‘synthetic Scots’ and ‘synthetic English’ poetry in volumes such as Sangschaw (1925), Penny Wheep (1926), and Stony Limits and Other Poems (1934). The essay considers his attitudes to artificial languages and to dictionaries in relation to modernity, and his reading of dictionaries and word books against the grain of academicism. It particularly considers John Jamieson’s Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. It goes on to consider how, in his poetry, MacDiarmid places words and phrases that have been gleaned from dictionaries: his placing them in similes, and his leaving some of them unglossed and obscure. It concludes by considering the framing effects of alliteration, and the interplay of artifice and authenticity in MacDiarmid’s poetry.