One of the few novels that I read again and again (every two or three years) is Don DeLillo’s magnificent Underworld. I won’t give too much plot away, but there is one section where a teenager is wasting his life away in a young offenders’ institution. He’s got no worldly prospects, not desire to put things right or move forward, no personal ambition at all. And the path to his redemption begins when one of his mentors, an elderly Jesuit, asks him to name the holes through which the laces are threaded in his shoes.
The Jesuit has a thing about shoes, and before too long he has given him an education in every aspect of the shoe, and the technical word for every single piece of leather and string and metal and cloth that goes to make up this triumph of human civilisation. (It reminds me, by the way, of that scene in the West Wing Series 6 when Josh first meets Senator Vinick, who gives him a lecture in the art of polishing shoes.) It’s the first time that the teenager has ever really paid attention to the world, and seen that there is a truth out there waiting to be discovered. A truth that is bigger than his narrow emotional connection with his environment that has defined his life up to this point. Even if it is just the truth of the humble shoe.
I say all this because I had one of those ‘vocabulary’ moments yesterday. I was visiting a friend with an outside staircase up to his first floor flat. I kept scuffing my shoes on the front of the steps, and I said that the stairs were very ‘narrow’. My friend said that this wasn’t the right word – narrow would be the width of the stairs from one side to the other. I wanted to describe the horizontal distance from the front edge of one step to the front edge of the next step; the space, in other words, that you have to step into before your foot falls over the edge.
My friend happened to do a carpentry course thirty years ago, went to an old bookshelf and pulled out a dusty file of handwritten notes about the construction of staircases. And there it was. The height of one step above the other is ‘the rise’. And the horizontal distance from the front of one step to the front of the next is ‘the going’. Isn’t that beautiful! A word that describes exactly what I wanted to describe. That people use every day. That was there all the time without me knowing it. The joy of language. And found without Wikipedia — although you can see the Wiki definitions here.
A final connected aside/recommendation: A great track on a great album, Aimee Mann’s ‘I know there’s a word for this’ on her masterpiece Whatever.
Bridges and Tangents 
Once you have birthed a child or two, finding the right name for the right child is satisfaction enough. Everything becomes the “whassname”!
But what if, three months later, you realise you have chosen the ‘wrong’ name – one that doesn’t fit. I’m sure I met someone once who gave a name to a baby and (just a few days later) changed it because it didn’t seem right… I’ve certainly met people who took days and days to give the baby a name because they couldn’t decide.
Father Stephen:
Thank you for this blog. Having worked for a number of years with children who have been removed from their homes due to abuse and/or neglect I am familiar with those who are placed in group homes or institutions. They indeed do have no one, and it is so important to help them find some connection in order to build a meaningful life; otherwise when left to their own devices often their path becomes even more bleak. I will find “Underworld” at my earliest convenience; it sounds like great reading.
Following your thoughts on finding the right word: one of the wonderful things about learning something new is in learning that there are many new words to describe something that, like the staircase used everyday, is important to people in that the components each have a name, and the ways of building (or doing) have been recorded. It is a whole world unknown, but for your footfalls on the steps.
On a following note; I read an article years ago which concluded with a situation wherein the author wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right word (or words). She used a French word which essentially means “the wisdom of the staircase;” the word or response that fits perfectly, and comes to mind after the fact. We have all been in that situation. . . however, maybe the wisdom is in NOT making the comment after all!
Thanks Bo. Another staircase reference: Someone gave me some advice years ago about how to cope with nerves when you are doing something in public, in the spotlight. She said, ‘do it as if you are walking down the stairs’, i.e. with the same lack of self-consciousness. And I remember that still whenever I am about to get in a panic about something.
Hi Fr Stephen,
I like your references to staircases. I work in Adult Mental Health and often meet people who, due to mood disorders, have find difficulty in doing things they normally do, such as preparing a simple meal. I recommend they try to break tasks down into easily achievable steps. I sometimes use the analogy of a staircase. saying that they have steps so we can achive our aim of reaching the top. Most people like this analogy and I find it helpful myself in achieving what, sometimes, seem to be unattainable feats.