Shangri La

Some friends of mine have a flat near the Shangri La hotel in Beijing and there is a part of Yunnan, the Diqing Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, which has officially named itself Shangri-La.

But what exactly is Shangri La? Most people understand it as an imaginary paradise on earth, a utopia or a secluded place of great beauty. What they may not realize is that it is an invented term that dates back to 1933 and the novel “Lost Horizon” by James Hilton.

James Hilton wrote a number of bestsellers as well as “Lost Horizon” including “Random Harvest” and “Goodbye Mr. Chips”. They inspired successful film adaptations and are well worth digging out from your local DVD store if you get the chance.

Lost Horizon is also interesting as it was first ever novel to be published in paperback in 1939. It originally came out in 1933 and the later edition was in paperback. A paperback has a soft cover and is considerably cheaper than a hardback.

Hilton lived and worked in Hollywood and nobody really knows where his mythical kingdom is. Apparently reading National Geographic magazine articles by a man named Joseph Rock, who was exploring South Western China, inspired him to create Shangri La. Zhongdian has now been renamed Xianggelila, based on its claim to be the source of Hilton's book, but there are at least another two sites in China competing for the title and the tourist revenue.

People in the West sometimes name their houses Shangri La and that is what the US President Franklin D Roosevelt named his presidential retreat. As a term Shangri La has entered popular culture and it frequently crops up in songs, films and TV shows.

Of course James Hilton is not the only writer to have contributed words to the English language. William Shakespeare invented around 2,000 new words and many of them are still around today!

(Source: www.englishonline.org.cn)

Johnny Grammar is English Online's resident grammar teacher. Johnny loves to tackle your worst grammar nightmares and provide you with simple explanations.

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