godwottery, God wot! The Great War.First, advent calendars; then gnomes; then the tree; and then Christmas itself.

A Christmas Gnome Tradition, More than 1,000-Strong

The writer Andrew Solomon recounts his enduring love for the cheerful little heroes of Swedish folklore, handed down from his late mother.

Credit...Ryan Lowry for The New York Times


By Andrew Solomon
Updated
Dec. 15, 2024, 12:00 a.m. ETDec. 15, 2024

First, advent calendars; then gnomes; then the tree; and then Christmas itself. Only as an adult did I discover that one element in this sequence separated us from other New York families. In my early childhood, my mother, awakened to a novel festive touch by a Swiss friend with Swedish tastes, had collected more than a hundred little hand-carved wooden figures — Scandinavian gnomes, dressed in red, mostly with cotton-wool hair.

godwottery (god-WOT-uhr-ee)

noun
1. Gardening marked by an affected and elaborate style.
2. Affected use of archaic language.

Etymology
From the line "A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!" in a poem by Thomas Edward Brown (1830-1897)

Now here is a word with a dual personality. Poet T.E. Brown unwittingly helped coin it when he wrote a poem describing his garden filled with all that came to his mind: grotto, pool, ferns, roses, fish, and more.
And when he needed a word to rhyme with the line "Rose plot," he came up with "God wot! " He used "wot", an archaic term that's a variant of wit (to know), to mean "God knows!" and it stood out among other contemporary words in the poem.
If you wish to create your own godwottery, we recommend: sundials, gnomes, fairies, plastic sculptures, fake rockery, pump-driven streams, and wrought-iron furniture. A pair of pink flamingos will round it out nicely.

Usage
"And an important thing about all this godwottery -- as Anthony Burgess calls it -- is that all types and classes embrace it." — Paul Fussell; The Great War 第一次世界大戰 and Modern Memory; Oxford University Press; 2000.



wot
(wŏt)
v.
First and third person singular present tense of wit².

[Middle English wat, from Old English wāt.]

wit² (wĭt)

v. Archaic, wist (wĭst), wit·ting (wĭt'ĭng), first and third person singular present tense, wot (wŏt). v.tr.
To be or become aware of; learn.

v.intr.
To know.

idiom:

to wit

1. That is to say; namely.

[Middle English, from Old English witan.]