I am humbled

Saturday 28 September 2013

Aussie actor Hugh Jackman feels pretty crappy today. He's just attended the 61st San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain, where he picked up a Donostia award for lifetime achievement. I know he feels lousy, because he said the award made him feel "humbled".

The Oxford Dictionary (www.oxforddictionariesonline.com) says that the verb to humble means "to cause someone to feel less important or proud". Macquarie Dictionary defines it as follows: "to lower in condition, importance or dignity; abase".

Does this man look lowered in condition, importance or dignity?

This unusual use of the word humble is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon. Wherever someone gets an award or otherwise has praise and adoration lavished upon them – whether they're actors, sports stars or triumphant politicians – they can often be heard telling us that they feel humbled by the honour.

Why are they seemingly telling us that all this positive attention makes them feel so bad? In the recent past it was only genuinely devastating blows to one's ego that would prompt people to say that they felt humbled, such as undergoing a relationship breakup, losing one's job, getting thrashed in a debate with a friend or colleague – or undergoing any number of the countless other humiliations that life can throw at us. 

What's happening to the meaning of this word? I suspect it's in the process of becoming a contronym, which is a word that means both one thing and also its exact opposite. Probably the most well-known example of a contronym is the word sanction, which means "a penalty for disobeying a law or regulation" (e.g. "The sanctions against Iraq imposed by the US were having a drastic effect on the Iraqi population") and which also means "official permission or approval for an action" (e.g. She sanctioned his use of the company credit card"). So sanction can mean to permit or to punish.

But on second thoughts, I'm not sure that when the word humbled is used at these moments of triumph that the person wants to say that they feel either elated and proud or abjectly low and unworthy. The sense I get is that they want to say that they are deeply touched by getting the award and the lavish praise and attention, that they feel genuinely appreciative and grateful. But there's still a hint of the original meaning of the word in there. They don't really feel humiliated, but they want to get across the idea that all this attention hasn't given them a swollen head, that they've still got their feet on their ground.

Bigotry in the garden

I was watering a few plants this morning when I noticed a shoot of Wandering Jew – the weed known by the Latin name of tradescantia – poking out from behind some of the leaves of the only plant that was intended to be in a particular container.

I was struck by two arresting thoughts: what do Jews called Wandering Jew, and are they offended by the name? I felt sure that they would find the term offensive; who would want to be associated with such a pervasive botanical menace? A quick internet search revealed nothing about what I imagined to be the high dudgeon in which Jews would find themselves if they worked as horticulturalists or were home gardeners and wanted to call a radio gardening program to ask advice about getting rid of this plant. My search terms were "wandering Jew plant offensive", yet there was almost no discussion from Jewish websites about being scandalised by this name and wanting to change it. Jewish groups object vehemently and rapidly to acts of anti-Semitism carried out by individuals or organisations. But why don't they protest as loudly – or at all – about this common name for the tradescantia plant that would seem to be quietly and insidiously perpetuating anti-Semitic sentiment?

Would doing so be seen as petty, thereby bringing more unwarranted scorn upon a people who have already suffered more than enough? Haven't they got more important things to worry about? some people might say.

Or might they feel an odd affinity for this plant, with their shared history of persecution? I've noticed this name affinity phenomenon (as I've just termed it) among people whose surnames are the same as words used to designate colours, such as Grey (or Gray), Brown(e), Green(e), Black and White. I once worked at a place where a colleague – a neatly attired woman in late middle age – had the surname of Grey. A few of us were sitting around one day and commenting on the drabness of our offices. One forthright colleague – who rarely stopped to think of the insulting implications of any of her utterances – said, "How about these grey office walls? Can you think of any colour more drab or dreary? I absolutely hate grey! It's such a boring colour." My eyes darted over to Mrs Grey to monitor her reaction. She sat mutely for a while, then said, "I don't think they're too bad. At least it's a light grey, so it reflects a lot of light."

Was this her heartfelt response to the colour of the walls? Or did she – unlike the colleague who made this comment – only too readily perceive the connection between her surname and the colour? If she liked her surname, would she feel reflexively (and perhaps irrationally) compelled to defend any denunciations of the associated colour? Or can some colour-surnamed people distinguish between the colour and the name and comfortably harbour contradictory feelings about each?

I once attended an editing course in which there was an indexing component taught by a very knowledgeable woman called Glenda Browne. Apart from her good teaching skills, one of the first things I noticed about her was that she wore items of brown clothing to every class. I wondered if she did this consciously, or as many students of onomastics (the study of names) have noted, we are motivated by unconscious forces to do so many things in our lives, including selecting a particular name for a child. Were the clothing choices of the indexing teacher a way of expressing solidarity with the Browne clan? And what if a person has a colour surname but doesn't like the actual colour it denotes? Would they feel like a traitor?

Ex-politician Bob Brown – the former leaders of the Greens – is a slightly different phenomenon. He's got a colour surname, but he's associated more with a more verdant hue than with brown. But it's still intriguing that both his name and his career have colour associations. And I've often wondered how the ABC political commentator Antony Green feels when he's commenting on the pasting that his namesake political party is taking in various polls or elections, now that their fortunes have turned.

You probably already know that the star of the hilarious movie School of Rock is the endearingly pudgy Jack Black. But did you know that his co-star in that movie – the spineless, put-upon Ned Schneebly – is named Mike White? Not only were their two characters polar opposites in personality – one loud, lazy and overconfident; the other meek, responsible and lacking in self-belief – but in real life their names were also chromatic opposites. What were the chances?

Names are indeed very strange and powerful things. When you start to think about them seriously you'll see all kind of patterns and possibly unconscious impulses at work, whether it's mothers choosing appellations for their newborns, people choosing a career (there's a vet in Sydney called Dr Melissa Catt) or freakishly serendipitous business collaborations; I once knew of a small firm of solicitors called Hazard and Friend. One name hints at the advisability of keeping one's distance; the other beckons with a cheery greeting.

Tradescantia – also known as Wandering Jew

The age-defying, death-denying Cliff

On Christmas Eve I saw something at my local newsagent that horrified me and nearly made me vomit. It was the Cliff Richard 2013 calendar. The cover showed the eerily youthful Cliff striking a dynamic, action-man pose as he was swinging his surf ski from one side to the other, stopping for just a mo' to be captured by the adoring camera. But there was, curiously, not a fleck of sea foam or any other water on him. He was clad in a life jacket and, disturbingly, his chest was exposed. 

Cliff is now 72 years old, so you'd expect the bloom of youth to have long faded and that there would be at least few grey hairs. But not a single strand of silver could be seen. I think it was the chest hair that produced the involuntary retching action. It was the colour of diluted furniture varnish. Cliff has said that he insists that there should be no "airbrushing" (what a funny, old-school term that is) of his image, but this doesn't mean he hasn't succumbed to the temptation of a bottle of hair dye. I believe Cliff when he says that there should be no "airbrushing" of his photos, given his strong Christian principles and commitment to a virtuous lifestyle. But he has admitted to using Botox at various times and I'm sure that his hair  – both that on the head and on the chest – is no stranger to colour-restoring agents. 

Cliff attributes his fresh and dewy complexion to clean living and an abstemious diet. But having loads of money and not having to work too hard in later life would help to smooth any incipient furrows that might otherwise have threatened to mar his relatively smooth brow.

Cliff should be a marvellous example to seniors everywhere and serve as a role model for those of us who are younger and aspire to an active senescence. But there's something creepy about the Cliff Richard 2013 calendar. I could be on my own here, given that Cliff's 2012 calendar outsold the calendar of the much younger, smoother Justin Bieber. 

There is, however, an antidote to the youth glorification of celebrity calendars. American artist Georgia O'Keeffe has often had her own calendar, and although it was largely filled with her paintings of flowers, you would occasionally see an image of her on the painter on the back of the calendar. But she presented a very different image of old age from that of Cliff. She was probably much older than Cliff when the iconic photos of her face were taken – she lived to be 99 years of age – and it showed. Her faced was deeply lined and parched, like a stretch of the New Mexico desert that became her permanent home after 1949. It was, despite the wrinkles, a very beautiful face that seemed unafraid to deteriorate. Its owner was serene and seemingly comfortable with the way she looked. It was, above all, a fearless face, whose owner seemed unafraid of the inevitability of losing youthful beauty, succumbing to decrepitude – and finally ceasing to exist.

Georgia O'Keeffe as a young woman

What is really frightening, in contrast, are the faces of people who have been disfigured by botched plastic surgery. The expressions of these poor people call to mind the fright masks worn by Halloween pranksters. The flesh surrounding the eyes may have been plumped with filling agents, but this only serves to make the eyes look as if they have been poked further back into the head, the last pinprick vestiges of vitality deeply recessed into a haunted and tortured face. The fillers seek to emulate the attractive plumpness of youth, but they often end up looking like swellings acquired as a result of being punched – but without the bruises. Smiles are sometimes weirdly accentuated – I think by somehow widening the mouth and extending its corners – but the result looks more like an unnerving leer than a genuine expression of pleasure or delight.

The artist in her later years

People who can't bravely accept the inevitability of the ageing process are discouraging to the rest of us. It makes many of us who are younger think that growing older and losing the appealing looks of youth must be an extraordinarily difficult burden, and that the only way to alleviate the distress is to resort to plastic surgery, non-surgical face fillers and litres of hair colouring (which, despite all our technological progress, still looks really dodgy – especially on men). If you can use any of these age-concealing techniques and successfully acquire more youthful looks, then good luck to you. But if you end up getting a trout pout from your over-filled lips, you won't end up looking more youthful. You'll just look old and stupid. Nothing wrong with looking old. But who wants to advertise their stupidity on their face?