Mr. Random’s Radio Show

JUNK RADIO for 3 November 2009 (30 minutes):

Downloading and streaming options • Direct link to MP3 file

The need to lay a personal imprint on language is rarely more evident than in the personal sphere. The better we know someone the more the standard name they bear comes to seem inadequate, and the greater the desire to twist it into a new one, so as to reflect our awareness of their particularities. Proust’s name on his birth certificate was Valentin Louis Georges Eugene Marcel Proust, but because this was a dry mouthful it was appropriate that those closest to him moulded it into something more suited to who Marcel was for them. For his beloved mother, he was mon petit jaunt [my little yellow one), or mon petit serin [my little canary], or mon petit bent [my little clod) or mon petit nigaud [my little oaf). He was also known as mon pauvre loup [my poor wolf), petit pauvre loup [poor little wolf) and le petit loup [the little wolf — Mme Proust called Marcel's brother Robert mon autre loup, which gives us a sense of family priorities]. To his friend Reynaldo Hahn, Proust was ‘Buncht’ [and Reynaldo `Bunibula to his friend Antoine Bibesco, Proust was lecram' and when he got too friendly, le F lagorneur [the toady], or not straight enough, le Saturnien. At home, he wanted his maid to know him as `Missou’ and he would call her ‘Plouplou’. – ALAIN DE BOTTON