With your indulgent permission, I thought I’d break from our Wednesday pattern of craft Blogs and add a more playful thread I’ve been toying with for some time: Words that are no longer popular, but should be.  Personally, I often drop words into conversation that are asynchronous with their context (See?  I just did it!).  But I also wanted to start this thread because certain words are just so gosh-darn fun that they deserve more stage-time, and should never have been cast aside.  I got this idea because of the word “Consarnit”—a grizzled, prospectory sort of word that is a euphemism expressing that something bad has happened (as in: “Consarnit!  I forgot to paste my cover letter and/or upload my submission into the Relief Writers Network!”).  I don’t know the origin of the word, and can’t even find it in any dictionaries, which might be a question of misspelling it.  But a standard Google search reveals, for whatever reason, that the word is popular with the comic book set; I can find it in this spelling connected with G.I. Joe, Star Wars, and Transformers.  I dunno. 

What I do know, however, is that in the course of researching this Blog I found a fantastic website at www.phrontistery.info, which contains (among other things) a compendium of lost words being preserved . . . well . . . because they should be.  The requirements for a lost word are described on the site, but suffice it to say that some of the several hundred archived words are delightful.  For example:

Blateration, which means chatter or babbling: as in “I've had about enough of your garrulous blateration, you clod!”

Others are mysterious, like…

Ascoliasm, a noun for “a boys' game of beating each other with gloves or leather while hopping”

And some, depending upon your liturgical inclinations, might be downright practical, such as…

Ebaptization, meaning “declaring that someone has not been properly baptized” (for those of you who like stirring the pot).

Even better is the magnificent “hymnicide,” meaning “the killing of hymns through alterations.”

So I thought I’d ask people what words they think deserve a chance to shine!  Browse the site and nominate your favorites, search on your own, or just tell us about your pet project words.  In the meantime, I leave you with the word that, as a lifelong Simpsons fan, is my favorite discovery so far: Back in the 1600s there existed the word “homerkin,” which was a noun referring to an old liquid measurement of beer.   

Positively delightful.  Enjoy!

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Heather von Doehren  - I like big "butts" but not the kind you're thin     |2008-04-30 05:12:08 That is a butt, meaning a "unit of volume equal to two hogsheads or 126 gallons." Check it out in the list labeled "Units of Measurement" at http://www.phrontistery.info/unit.html Reply | Quote 0   0

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