As Terry Jackson’s petition tips over the 180,000 mark, and a breakfast TV debate of sorts* exposes the issue to yet more people, it may be time to ask – how much does it matter whether or not the Oxford University Press restore the lost naturewords to the Oxford Junior Dictionary?

This morning’s ITV debate pitched two opposing views, one of which has been well covered on this website.  The other took a version of the OUP line that the Dictionary is a product of a rigorous analysis and is a reflection of language as used today, not as we might like it.  It was also pointed out that there is a wealth of other books – including many published by OUP – that are designed to excite children with the world, and words, of nature.

Another point that is often made, but not this morning, is that this is, in any case, old news.  And not just because NATURAL LIGHT first started campaigning on it over two years ago, but because the controversial removal of dozens of nature words actually took place in 2007.

And ten years on, we are learning something else about language.  Some of the cool new words that went in to replace otter, conker, bluebell and so many others, are already on the wane.  Kids may have been endlessly chatting about chatrooms and picking BlackBerries over iPhones back in 2007, but isn’t it time to start weeding out some of those old fashioned words and replacing them with a few that simply refuse to die, like, say, otter, bluebell, conker?

It has even been suggested to me that the Oxford Junior Dictionary is doing nature a service as it is, by shocking parents and teachers into realising just how disconnected families have become – from nature, and, thanks to technology and its fickle lexis, from each other.  Perhaps adults should buy the OJD for themselves to use as a barometer of change to come.

Either way, Terry’s petition now has its own life, as a measure of opinion and concern.  In the same way that Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s The Lost Words exists entirely independently of its foster-parent, if the OJD can be so described, and spreads the joy of words and nature better than the OJD ever could, if the petition fails to elicit the right response from OUP, it is nonetheless doing essential work.  Please sign.


 *starts 42 minutes in, available for 1 week

Watlington-based artist Terry Jackson has taken up the #naturewords cause by starting a petition to the Oxford University Press, for the restoration of some of the 100+ nature-related words removed from its Oxford Junior Dictionary.  Regular readers will need no introduction to this controversy, which was first highlighted on these pages in 2015.  Please sign her petition!

In the space of five minutes outside my classroom, we raced across the field, past the WILLOW and the HOLLY and found a POPPY in BLOOM. Four DELETED nature words from the Oxford Junior Dictionary re-found by the children of Therfield School. Our purpose was to find as many of these DELETED nature words to kick start our Re-Wilding Nature Words week. Above is a photo taken by a child of the poppy which poignantly is framed by a wire fence, originally marking the perimeter of the school field, interpreted by the children as ‘a jail’ ‘where the deleted words went’. ‘Save our words from jail!’ they shouted spontaneously as we later filled a flip chart of possible slogans to use for our Demo posters.

The idea for this Nature Word Demo originated from my reading of the Lost Words in newspaper reports. As an educator of young children, I was alarmed that a venerable institution such as Oxford University Press should see fit to remove nature words from a much-used school dictionary without informing the public, and more importantly, the new words reflected only technological, celebrity and virtual-world activity, apparently more important than the natural world all around us. Newly included words such as chatroom, creep, MP3 player need a place in a dictionary BUT not at the expense of GOLDFISH, SPANIEL and CONKER! This is no longer a dictionary but a faddish list of words presented to a solitary child, I thought, ignoring the fact that we live on and are dependent upon a living planet, filled with birds, animals and plants we want to look after, and therefore need the spellings! After all, you cannot delete words when the object exists! This indignation was felt by the staff and children at school, especially as we have worked hard to develop a notion of the child as countryside citizen responsible for the local environment.

We put our idea for a demonstration to the children – no hesitation there. We agreed as teachers that to save these words we needed to use them. If children did not know the meanings, then we had to learn these and use them.
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And this is a summary of what we did:

​In conclusion: this work to re-kindle and re-find the Lost Words will carry on because the response has been supportive: parents are dismayed, teachers worried over the predominance of virtual worlds as refuge for children when internet safety is a daily concern. Importantly, the virtual and technological must live alongside the natural and we agree as a school there is space for both. GIVE US OUR WORDS BACK!

The former mansion house and grounds at Compton Verney, Warwickshire is the place to go for a quick lesson in how to lay on an art exhibition.  Critic Waldemar Januszczak described this summer’s Op Art project as “a dazzling exhibition that sets the standard for how all shows should be done”.  So, apart from the fact that their latest exhibition is all about #naturewords, I had good reason to look forward to my first visit there last night.  I was not disappointed.
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Jackie Morris’s paintings for The Lost Words, her stunning joint venture with writer Robert Macfarlane, are presented alongside Macfarlane’s acrostic word-spells, as he calls them, each celebrating one of twenty names for everyday wild animals and plants.  The story of these lost words has been told on this blog over the last three years.

Jackie Morris’s paintings for The Lost Words will be on display at Compton Verney, Warwickshire from 21 Oct to 17 Dec (except Mondays) 11am – 5pm

Countryfile’s edition from Cornwall will be broadcast on 22 October, BBC1 at 18:15, featuring poet Chrissie Gittins's celebration of nature words, and available on iPlayer afterwards.  Her Adder, Bluebell, Lobster is published by Otter-Barry Books

The Lost Words was published by Hamish Hamilton on 5 October.
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On Friday, in a field near St. Endellion in Cornwall, I found myself mic’d up for a conversation with Margherita Taylor of the BBC’s rural magazine programme Countryfile.  Shortly afterwards the poet Chrissie Gittins and a dozen children arrived for a nature-and-naturewords safari.  Chrissie read from Adder, Bluebell, Lobster, her collection of 40 children’s poems, each celebrating a lost nature word that had been deleted from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.  Then children from St. Kew, St. Minver, Nanstallon, Padstow and Blisland primary schools wrote a poem together, based on their real, direct experiences of nature.

As I was heading to the North Cornwall Book Festival and Countryfile, in Foyles Bookshop in London Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris were launching their own sumptuous treatment of the same subject – The Lost Words.  In this review by author Katharine Norbury, it is described as “a book of spells rather than poems, exquisitely illustrated by Morris [in which] Macfarlane gently, firmly and meticulously restores the missing words.”  It is almost three years since the writer Mark Cocker and I launched the #naturewords campaign, and it feels like a small October Revolution.

​In a recent article, Macfarlane summarises some striking research in which a Cambridge-based team made a set of 100 picture cards, each showing a common species of British wildlife. They also made a set of 100 cards showing a “common species” of Pokémon character. Children aged eight and over were substantially better, the researchers found, at identifying Pokémon “species” than “organisms such as oak trees or badgers”: around 80% accuracy for Pokémon, but less than 50% for real species.  

The research showed that young children have tremendous capacity for learning about creatures -real or imaginary - but are presently more inspired by “synthetic subjects” than by living creatures. In a break from the usual dispassion of the scientist, they ponder on the fact that “we love what we know … What is the extinction of the condor to a child who has never seen a wren”?

Blogging here In August I responded – positively – to Guardian columnist George Monbiot’s call for poets to weave their word-magic to find a new vocabulary for conservation and the environment, we conservationists having been part of the problem with our alienating technocratic language.  Gittins, Macfarlane and Morris are deploying their artistry in an even more fundamental way, to restore #naturewords to the mouths, and the mind’s eyes, of children.

Jackie Morris’s paintings for The Lost Words will be on display at Compton Verney, Warwickshire from 21 Oct to 17 Dec (except Mondays) 11am – 5pm

Countryfile’s edition from Cornwall will be broadcast on 22 October, BBC1 at 18:15

The Lost Words was published by Hamish Hamilton on 5 October.
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Adder, Bluebell, Lobster is published by Otter-Barry Books

It is more than two years since NATURAL LIGHT launched its campaign to restore nature words to children’s vocabulary, following the shocking discovery that the Oxford Junior Dictionary had removed over a hundred of them, replacing them with “indoor” words like broadband and chatroom.

The story was picked up on the other side of the Atlantic, by pharmaceutical brand Claritin, whose allergy medicine is an increasingly important part of kids’ outdoor kit.  The rest is in the video:

When writers and artists across the English-speaking world heard about the decision by the Oxford Junior Dictionary to remove over a hundred everyday words connected with nature, the response was clear:  we must save words like conker, bluebell and buttercup from extinction.  Writers for whom the loss of such words from children’s vocabulary was unthinkable, from Margaret Atwood in Canada to Andrew Motion and Michael Morpurgo in the UK, wrote to Oxford University Press to complain.  Some, such as writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris, are publishing their own celebrations of what Macfarlane has called wonder-words.

Now prize-winning children’s poet Chrissie Gittins has built her latest collection around forty of the lost nature words, with the message:  “Help save the names of these animals, plants and birds from extinction and be inspired to write your own poems using other words which have been culled!”

Chrissie Gittins was born in Lancashire and lives in south London. She worked as an artist and teacher before becoming a fulltime writer. Her poems have been animated for CBeebies and included in many anthologies. Adder, Bluebell, Lobster brings the natural world up close through dramatic and vivid poetic imagery.  

From Adder to Wren, forty fantastic poems celebrate forty amazing animals, birds and plants and their beautiful names.  Readers are invited to watch out for bossy Beetroot, be enchanted by a Bluebell witch’s thimble and spot a dive-bombing Lark or a cute Great-Crested Newt.
 
Adder, Bluebell, Lobster:  Wild Poems is published on August 4 by Otter-Barry Books, an exciting new children’s imprint aiming to make a difference.  It is illustrated by Paul Bommer, an illustrator, printmaker and graphic designer who worked with Chrissie on her book The Humpback’s Wail.

​#naturewords

​This year, Oxford University Press declared hashtag to be children's 'word of the year' based on 120,000 stories written by children.

"Technology is miraculous, but so is nature" says Macfarlane. "Jackie and I wanted to find a way to release these simple wonder-words back into people's stories and dreams."

In her blog Jackie writes: It grew out of a letter I was asked to sign by Laurence Rose and Mark Cocker.  The letter was a request for the words culled from the Oxford Junior Dictionary to be returned.  These words included bluebell, conker, heron, acorn and perhaps the one that cut deepest for me, kingfisher.

She contacted Macfarlane, who coincidentally had been thinking about writing a children's book for some time,  Morris persuaded him it should be a book for all ages.

I contacted Jackie Morris at her home-studio by the sea near St. David's, Pembrokeshire.  She explained that Macfarlane had already started sending her material for what will be "a dazzling full-colour book of spells and spellings that seeks to re-wild the language of readers young and old."

They have chosen around twenty of the lost nature words to "start putting nature back into the mouths and minds' eyes of readers through the magical interplay of artwork and text."

Mark Sears, CEO of The Wild Network, an organisation devoted to reconnecting children with nature that has been collaborating in the #naturewords campaign, sees the new book as "the first sign of a counter-movement, a positive move to restore nature literacy."

"There is a real music in the flow of words Rob has sent me" Jackie told me yesterday, having received texts for otter and kingfisher so far.  And this afternoon a Facebook message:  "He's sent me an acorn piece - pure music!"

For 27 years Hay Festival has brought together writers from around the world to debate and share stories in the staggering beauty of the English and Welsh Borders. Hay celebrates great writing from poets and scientists, lyricists and comedians, novelists and environmentalists.  As usual, wildlife and environmental groups are closely associated this year.

Hay Fever is the young people’s festival within a festival, and welcomes nature enthusiasts Nicola Davies from the Really Wild Show, Piers Torday, Tom Moorhouse, Katie Scott and Virginia McKenna.  RSPB garden safaris and workshops are on every day, although many have sold out. Click the link for the full programme.

Hay on Earth is a programme for sustainability, and includes a day-long forum on Thursday 21 May exploring global sustainability issues.

Several other literary stars who have supported the campaign are taking part in the Hay programme including Nicola Davies, Melissa Harrison (At Hawthorn Time, 25 May), Tony Juniper, Helen MacDonald, Michael Morpurgo and children’s illustrator Jackie Morris.  Jackie’s beautiful book Queen of the Sky, about a peregrine and a girl who live on the west Wales coast, is featured on 31st.

On 24 May Canadian explorer John Hemming celebrates the Amazonian feats of three famous naturalist-explorers of 150 years ago:  Alfred Russel Wallace, Henry Walter Bates and Richard Spruce.  Closer to home, Britain’s shoreline is explored by Patrick Barkham (Coastlines, 28 May) in association with National Trust Wales.

Tough issues are tackled over two days on 28 and 29 May.  On the Thursday the Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales, Christianne Glossop, debates one of the most contentious issues in the countryside today:  badgers and bovine TB.  Later that day Bill Oddie will hopefully lighten the mood, although Bill is himself an outspoken champion of the badger’s cause, so who knows? The following day, economist Dieter Helm will argue that the environment is an economic asset and should be treated as such, and Tony Juniper (What Nature Does for Britain) will develop the idea of “natural capital.”  Prepare for some serious humour when Marcus Brigstocke tackles climate change later on 29th, before Jules Pretty addresses extinctions – in nature, and among human traditions and languages.

Click here for the full Hay programme, or visit our What’s On page for just the green bits.

The Wild Network, the organisation set up by a range of bodies to promote stronger connections between children and nature, has adopted the #naturewords campaign, and are calling for nature words to be put back in the Oxford Junior Dictionary via an on-line petition.  They have also produced this video to draw attention to the lost words:

Meanwhile, Penguin, the publishers of Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks, are inviting twitter users to suggest their favourite nature words in celebration of the language of landscape.