Flower Power

Or should that be flour power? If you’re more into baking than late sixties hippie chic, then maybe so. Take your pick. But that’s really beside the point*.

Not only are the words** ‘flour’ and ‘flower’ homophones /ˈflaʊɚ/ , but they also share a pretty groovy*** etymological history. You’d probably think that the strangeness of English pronunciation is the only thing that ties the two together. After all, they don’t apparently have a great deal**** in common. But in actual fact they do, and that’s where the fun starts. It’s rather confusing fun, but fun all the same.

So from Latin and via Old French we get the word ‘flour’. At this time it kind of meant ‘the best part of..’ .So the ‘flour’ (flower) was the best part of the plant, or the most beautiful part of the field and the ‘flour’ of cereals that were ground into meal (think oatmeal, wholemeal bread, not the more common meaning of the word.) was the best part, the part you’d use for baking.

So ‘flour’ and ‘flower’ ended up being two words for the same two things. Thankfully, so as to end the confusion, it was accepted that one word would refer to the white stuff for baking and the other for what the dictionary calls ‘the seed-bearing part of a plant, consisting of reproductive organs (stamens and carpels) that are typically surrounded by a brightly coloured corolla (petals) and a green calyx (sepals)’.

So here’s a chance to celebrate flowers and those groovy, late-sixties hippie days with Scott McKenzie’s wonderful song that perfectly captured the zeitgeist.*****

Of course, if you’re going, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t wear some flour in your hair.

Incidentally, the song was written for Scott by genius songwriter and member of The Mamas & The Papas, John Phillips. To bring things to an end, here’s the band with an absolutely unforgettable performance of another classic song of those times.

* If you say something is ‘beside the point’, you mean it’s really irrelevant.

** The classic of inversion, which is bound (certain) to impress your teacher or examiner. You want to emphasise two particular things: ‘not only + question form + but also..’ Boom!

*** ‘groovy’ is a word that belongs to those times, meaning fashionable and exciting. You can still use it, of course, but in a humorous, Austin Powers kind of way.

**** Another classic; the way to enrich your vocabulary by not just saying ‘a lot’ all the time. You can use it when referring to uncountable nouns or in a comparative sentence like this: ‘I think the music scene then was a great deal more interesting than it is now’.

***** ‘zeitgeist’ is a loan word from German that we use to talk about the defining spirit of a time in history. I love the word, it’s really groovy.