ABSTRACT
We English-speakers have, so the dictionaries tell us, been ‘interpreting’ language since the middle ages; we have ‘interpreted’ observed phenomena since the 1700s; and performers have offered their ‘interpretations’ of musical works since 1880. But this useful word has recently been called into fresh service, with another connotation so recent that the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, does not record it. There is now a whole range of activity (virtually a profession) known as ‘interpreting the environment’—sharing our understanding of how the world works. For those of you too impatient to wait another sixty years for the OED’s third edition, I offer here a provisional definition of this new usage, together with a couple of dated examples:
In current practice, this is an activity largely directed towards touristsnot just visitors travelling abroad, but any of us as we move about our own country. There are nature reserves, national parks, stately homes, industrial monuments, archaeological sites, museums and, more recently, purpose-built visitor centres, discovery parks and ‘experiences’. All are anxious to give us explanations of what they offer, and most of us are happy to learn more about what we have come to know as our heritage. The past two decades have seen a burgeoning of such provision, and connoisseurs will probably agree that much of it is better presented than it used to be. The more cynical may comment that we could do with less of it, while the discerning will also be aware of the rubbish that sometimes masquerades as interpretation, and will recognise how counter-productive second-rate work can be.
