The Nardac’s Wife
Glen Newey
Royal occasions offer the pleasure of mass atavism, including the revival of antediluvian words and attitudes. As journalists and newsreaders constantly drool, Catherine Middleton is a ‘commoner’. When her wedding was announced, the word turned up in the Mail and the Telegraph, even – though in bet-hedging scare quotes – in the ‘liberal’ Guardian. The overseas press has been at it too. The other day, France 24 told its viewers that the prince was to wed a roturier; the Corriere della Sera said that he was marrying a borghese. It reopens neighbouring semantic fields, notably the use of ‘common’ to mean ‘not distinguished’, ‘vulgar, of plebeian origin, nature (derog.)’, as in ‘a common prostitute’, ‘common as muck’ and so on.
Perhaps journalists with copy to file on this vacuous topic only pretend to take seriously the idea that humans, like racehorses, can be sorted into thoroughbreds and also-rans. But it seems to be held in earnest by the Prince of Wales, who notoriously put his unflappable reaction down to 'a thousand years of breeding' when a prankster let off a starting-pistol near him during a visit to Australia in 1994. No doubt when on marriage the queen makes her fiancé Nardac of Gunderland, Ms Middleton will be able to leave her vulgar origins behind. Until then, in fact, Prince William counts as a commoner too, as he’s neither yet the sovereign nor a peer of the realm. But then if we go back a bit, we’re all the offspring of apes, some no doubt commoner than others.
Comments
-
27 April 2011
at
1:12pm
alex
says:
Are professors commoners?
-
28 April 2011
at
10:36am
Phil Edwards
says:
@
alex
There's an 'honest broker' joke there somewhere, I swear there is (...and no professor could be commoner).
-
27 April 2011
at
7:07pm
Joe Morison
says:
The OED's most relevant definition of 'commoner' is "2.a More generally: One of the common people; a member of the commonalty. (Now applied to all below the rank of a peer.)". Is this really true of HRH Prince William? What is the ranking between peers and the monarch and the rest of us? If Mr. Newey is in possession of this esoteric knowledge, he must share it.
-
27 April 2011
at
7:54pm
Bob Beck
says:
Speaking of common, or rather uncommon, it's a pity Googlewhacking seems to be over. (Isn't it? The home page thereof hasn't been updated in years). Google "nardac" and "gunderland" (without quotes, of course), and this page is the only one you'll find.
-
28 April 2011
at
8:25am
No wonder I didn't understand that bit.
-
28 April 2011
at
1:39pm
The title certainly accords hereditary monarchy its due dignity, all right.
Read moreIf this sounds mad, you should try living in the middle of it. I walked past Buck Palace today, i have only ever seen so many film crews together on film - everywhere there were cameras and people commenting and interviewing, there's a new triple height studio block that overlooks the palace and fronts an intensely compacted compound of the world's media that is the size of a small village and has a hundred massive satellite dishes; hyperreality in action.