Archaic words we love to love
Amanda B Reckondwyth
Shipmate
in Heaven
(Prompted by a comment made on the You-Know-Who thread in Hell)
Words that are uncommonly seen in everyday English but have not quite disappeared (or in some cases have disappeared), but which we love all the same.
Slugabed -- someone who sleeps in late and is hard to rouse from bed.
Words that are uncommonly seen in everyday English but have not quite disappeared (or in some cases have disappeared), but which we love all the same.
Slugabed -- someone who sleeps in late and is hard to rouse from bed.
Comments
I thought it had something to do with Dr Who :-) Where's the stress in that - 2nd syllable in UK, first in US?
When my girls were younger, we had lots of jokes about words they had only read but never heard spoken, so their pronunciation was kind-of novel. I'm pretty sure I have embrassed myself with 'hyperbole' (not like the SuperBowl but more so, I assume) in public once or twice. And with apologies to US shipmates, Arkansas. But this is not the purpose of this thread.
And don't forget that "dumbledore" was not invented by J K Rowling.
There are words I think ordinary but I am then surprised when my adult sons are unfamiliar with them. I recently used ‘gallivanting around town’ in the family WhatsApp to describe my husband being out on a pub crawl and my younger son was very impressed with the new word.
The annual gathering of hopeful scholars yclept the Bursary Competition was the sentence in which I first came across it.
I conscientiously keep up older usages - 'anent' for 'about', 'forenenst' for 'in front,of'.
Some brief googlery just now says that whereanent and thereanent also have roles in the language.
I’ve never thought of thaumaturge as archaic, myself…
vamoose -- to leave, from Spanish vamanos
calaboose -- jail, from Spanish calabozo
Personally I like using antepenultimate and thrice but they are rare (at least in the English I use) not archaic.
or maybe with tininabulation.
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells (GASP) bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells...
Sorry, just flashed back to Poe...
Lovingkindness - frequently mis-translated and confused with altruism.
There's lots more, such as "savvy the lingo" coming from saber la lengua.
Keeping time, time, time, in a sort of runic rhyme...
Yes, I know it's also a traditional pudding.
Hmmmm. I wonder if Wolfe's live-in chef Fritz every made him flummery....?
Another of my favorite words is cahoots -- persons acting together, usually for questionable motives.
I often use ‘in cahoots’.
When used correctly!
It was one of HL Mencken's prefered insults in the 1920s and 1930s, applied to politicians as well as quacks. Not sure if it was au courant when he was using it, or somewhat antiquated.
DT
Vamoose is still in use here in suburban Sydney. I can't speak of other places.
Yes! There are definitely fewmets in T H White. I remember them distinctly.
A personal favourite of mine is sesquipedalian although I'm not sure if I've spelled it correctly. Meaning prone to using long words.
Reminding me of a favorite Mark Twain quote:
"His one striking peculiarity was his . . . using big words for their own sakes, and independent of any bearing they might have upon the thought he was purposing to convey." --Mark Twain, Roughing It