Defining Heraldry

A few will be aware I have been known to speak on various subjects over the years. Fundamentally these all revolve around my favourite subject of etymology. Have always enjoyed bringing this fascinating subject to others. It’s not for me to say whether the audiences have, although many have asked me to return.

Thought it might be worthwhile sharing a snippet or two from these etymological presentations, continuing with Defining Heraldry. In the days when few could read the use of imagery to carry messages meant heraldry was almost universally understood. Today we most often see these images on letterheads or signs outside public houses, but how much of it do we understand? Is there information to be found simply by unravelling the hidden messages comprising a coat of arms? Could we discover a lineage of our family tree through heraldry? And are we entitled to produce our own heraldic images in the 21st century? Find the answers to all these questions and more in this talk. Furthermore, send through examples of local heraldry at the time of booking the talk and learn how it came into existence and just what it tells us.

Difficult to give a taster as each talk is tailored to the region where I’m speaking. But we can give some general ideas beginning with….

Colours and orange – pointing to worthy ambition

Oak tree or leaves points to great age and strength

Lions represent dauntless courage.

A mermaid points to eloquence.

A hand represents pledge of faith, sincerity and justice.

If you think you know someone who would like to hear me speak on this subject, drop me a line. Note I’ll need a few weeks to research specifics.

That's not what I meant (V)

Strange original meaning for 'verge'.

Vegetables are the fruits of plants grown for food, or sometimes the leaves, but once described something or someone seen as living the life of a plant.

Verge is a border or margin, today. It began as the Latin virga or 'rod', and was first used in English to mean 'penis'.

Vice, and we are talking about the device used to grip objects in DIY, originally referred to a 'winding staircase'.

Victim is today referring to one who suffers, originally it spoke of one about to suffer for it described a person or animal caught to be offered as a sacrifice.

Vulgar or 'crude' began in the fourteenth century meaning 'ordinary, common'.

Stafford Storm

June 19th 1861 and, in true British summer tradition, a huge thunderstorm raged over and around Stafford. At Aston Hall a "very valuable" horse belonging to Mr Lindop was, as the local press termed it, "killed by the electric fluid". The horse had been left out to graze in the field and, when the owners went to check on their animal, found the creature to be "complete jelly from the violence of the shock".

Note the press took pains to point out the owner was insured against such losses and the Norwich Union Fire Office promptly reimbursed him for his loss".