Pure Language

I can remember being out in Southampton at a modest house my parents rented in the summer. The altar boy test was in the fall. I would study the Latin responses every evening. Of course, I didn’t know Latin. I was eleven or twelve years old and I was no John Stuart Mill. Underneath the Latin in red would be the phonetic spellings, so I was just memorizing syllables. I’d memorize Soo-shi-pee-ah-om-me-no-sa-cre-fi-chi-om. I didn’t know what I was saying! I was memorizing hundreds of syllables that brought me into the pure sound of the language, almost like nonsense, like jabberwocky, a delight in the sound of things.

Another example of that is my interest in bridge columns. I don’t play bridge. I have no idea how to play bridge, but I always read Alan Truscott’s bridge column in the Times. I advise students to do the same unless, of course, they play bridge. You find language like, South won with dummy’s ace, cashed the club ace and ruffed a diamond. There’s always drama to it: Her thirteen imps failed by a trick. There’s obviously lots at stake, but I have no idea what he’s talking about. It’s pure language. It’s a jargon I’m exterior to, and I love reading it because I don’t know what the context is, and I’m just enjoying the language and the drama, almost like when you hear two people arguing through a wall, and the wall is thick enough so you can’t make out what they’re saying, though you can follow the tone.
- Billy Collins, Paris Review interview