160. Coward

The Allusionist

Helen Zaltzman

Arts, Education, Words, Linguistics, History, Entertainment, Helen Zaltzman, Etymology, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Anxiety is the parrot sidekick that rides on my shoulder and occasionally squawks warnings in my ear,” says Tim Clare, poet and podcaster and author of the book Coward: Why We Get Anxious & What We Can Do About It. We talk about anxiety, cowardice, magic bullets vs silver bullets, the scary Bible, and seagulls.

Content note for discussion about mental health, unsurprisingly, and colonial and military harmful practices.

Find out more about this episode and some sources of the information therein at theallusionist.org/coward, where there's also a transcript. Find Tim's books, podcasts, writing courses and more at timclarepoet.co.uk.

The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow.

The Allusionist is produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s own songs via palebirdmusic.com.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzman, find a pot of language at the end of the rainbow.
0:09.0	Today we're talking about anxiety. There is some terrific etymology coming up and so much more.
0:14.0	Content note for discussion about mental health unsurprisingly and colonial and military harmful practices.
0:20.0	I'm not going to kind of etymology conspiracy theorist I think. I realise this kind of like etymological essentialism is a really odd way of going.
0:40.0	Well, this is the origin of the word comes from this and this and this and it's like well it doesn't really matter.
0:46.0	It's like we all know how we use the word what we mean, right? But I quite like that idea that there are sort of secret fossil records in words that you can kind of break apart.
0:58.0	This idea that there might be sort of secret echoes of previous meanings contained within a word.
1:04.0	But it's quite grounding as well when you see all these ways that sort of like the genetic heritage of a word.
1:11.0	Because it goes back in all sorts of directions, it just gives you a sense of place and time and I suppose for someone who is given to being a bit of a worry walt.
1:21.0	It's quite nice. It kind of puts a lot of things in perspective.
1:25.0	My name is Tim Kler and I'm a writer and podcaster and author of the book coward.
1:32.0	In his book coward, Tim goes deep into the history and science and numerous different treatments for anxiety, a condition which he has contended with for much of his life.
1:42.0	What made you choose the word coward for the book?
1:45.0	I think there's a way of turning and facing how I felt about myself, how a lot of anxious people feel about themselves and how much of that comes from societal ideas about what we shouldn't do.
2:01.0	It was actually a contentious choice.
2:07.0	My publishers initially thought it was too negative.
2:11.0	But that was deliberate.
2:14.0	I love the word. I love the word coward. I love the background of its meaning.
2:21.0	That background is nothing to do with cowards. Well, except in the last name coward which has nothing to do with cowardice but means cowherd.
2:31.0	Coward, the common noun, derives from the Latin cowder which also lent its off to words like coder and cue and cue spot the other way and French cuck.
2:40.0	It means tail.
2:41.0	You find it in like heraldry, you have like a lion coward which is in heraldry a lion portrayed with its tail between its legs.
	...

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