act /akt/

My acting career culminated in grade seven. Our French class performed a play for the school as part of some larger event which was attended by many parents. It was set in a discothèque. We all had to dance as the play opened. Then we talked. I had one line and I still have it memorized. Ready for this?

"D'accord!"

Which means I agree. I basically just piggybacked on someone else's line. Then we danced again to a cacophony of derisive laughter from the audience as the curtain closed.

I still remember the review I received for my performance: "Hey wasn't that your French class in the play? I'm surprised you weren't in it."

Madame Visser could have at least given me "Je suis d'accord." Maybe that would have got me in the spotlight long enough to be noticed. Oh well.

Totally not us.

Agendocide

Agendocide: This is when an entire population of healthy goals and planning and diarizing gets gunned down by a lazy slob - or by someone who is hampered by serious medical and mobility issues but who is never entirely sure if they might actually secretly just be a lazy slob.

This one is celebrating Agendocide Day with a pretty serious bout of productivity:

I brushed my teeth today, spent some time outside, had a coffee, engaged in numerous phone calls in response to urgent affairs in Grampa Munster's corner (more on that later), spoke to a Health Network to clear up some medical needs and schedule an occupational therapist assessment, worked on an important video (more on that later) and did a little planning with a great pal with regards to April Camp Nano and April A-to-Z blogging.

And yeah: welcome to A-to-Z blogging! I'm gonna be busy plopping posts on this page six days a week. Sorry about your luck.

Question A: What non-traditional ANIMAL might you like as a pet?

Hmmm... honestly, a Bengal tiger because I could make him a mascot of the lacrosse team. I think he'd help draw a pretty good crowd. And hopefully not eat them.

Gender Schmender

We know that diversity is king.

We know that genetic diversity produces the healthiest offspring in mammals.

We know that diverse interests produce the most intelligent minds and emotional health and neuroscientists understand why.

We know that biodiversity is key to the biosphere and the potential survival of every doom-pointed mammal (all of us) on this crippled paradise of a planet.

We know that cultural diversity breeds cultural health and understanding and shines light on the darkest bleakest xenophobic redneck minds.

And I know - I know - how diversity in personal style avails joy and celebration in living every day. As such I don't care what you do with your clothes and your hair and your skin paint and your bits, bobs and bangles. Just do what you want, regardless of your sex. Whether you look like a boring traditional male or traditional female or somewhere in between, just please follow your inklings and be original. Be yourself. I won't judge you. Why the hell would I? What could I possibly have to lose?

We know that little girls and little boys are virtually identical in their gender-role-based interests until such a time as adults begin to impart arbitrary traditional roles upon them.

So if you want to "identify" as a male or female or neither or something in between then please do! Think of yourself the way you are inclined to think of yourself, by all means! And express it any way you're inclined.

And I will think of you how I am inclined to think of you, by all means, though I won't care about it.

For goodness sakes try to be a strong. I know it must not be easy sometimes, but looking for help by dictating pronouns is a dangerous game. If you're a close friend and you talk about yourself in such a way that my instinctive view of your gender changes then I will fall into line. I have a friend who went through a full surgical transformation and I no longer think of her as "he" and I instinctively refer to her as she. It just happens. She is very feminine in appearance. And I have other friends whose appearance does not convey to me one role or another very strongly, and so I think of them as I always have since my first impression when we first met.

I don't actually give a damn about the label; it's just instinctive and the only reason it comes to light whatsoever is because of language. There is no genderless form of the words he or she. Them is plural in most contexts. And pronouns are not words we think about when we talk. They pop out instinctively. But he and she means the same damn thing. Can we please learn to think of them as interchangeable? Instead of using them as affirmation? They are a shit tool for affirmation. Can we please not use them to test people? Trying to constantly think about pronouns when speaking is a matter of exhausting mental gymnastics.

When I say he or she it is not a reflection of what you are. It is a reflection of which way I instinctively interpret you lean. And if my interpretation differs from yours, so what? It's just me being honest about something completely void of importance to me. It is not an insult. That doesn't mean that your struggle isn't important to me. There are just other ways I will demonstrate that.

Our language has flaws. It has always been imprecise. We must do our best to communicate effectively, clearly, accurately prior to using language as a tool to show how nice we are.

Not too long ago I visited a drive-through and the person who handed me my lunch had the most beautiful appearance - in my own subjective view of course - that I have ever perceived at first sight. So beautiful. Stunning. Breath-taking. I was unnerved. It was almost tragic. I dearly wanted to linger and to ask this gorgeous creature if I could take them out for dinner. I wanted to know all about this person. I wanted to look at that face. I have no certainty if it was a girl or a boy under that hair and those clothes. If I had to bet I would say she was probably - either currently or originally - anatomically a boy but I really did not care. I did not want in her pants either way; only to bask in her light. This was a surprising experience. I never would have predicted this. And if we went to dinner I would not care what clothes or hair this person showed up in; which gender tradition they presented. I drove away feeling very very sad that such a joyful admiration could not be expressed because I was too scared to challenge our piece of shit societal expectations and superstitions.

Diversity is king.

Dress You Up

Help rescue LGBT+ students persecuted by Turkish police

X

Screw you, X. Nobody likes you.

You’re not even a real letter.

All you do is team up with the CTRL button to delete things. Well guess what Mother Trucker? Today I'm deleting you! From A-to-Z.

Welcome to A-to-Z-except-for-X. Have a great day!

Safe homeward

Hey hey my salty little sweethearts. How goes it? I for one am feeling a little loopy perhaps from too much blogging and not enough sleeping? And by too much blogging I mean nowhere near the volume of youtubing or minecrafting but… it might be in the top five of my End Times Activity Log.

I feel like my wee articles are getting maybe a little too goofy sometimes and maybe not wee enough.

So my very smart, sensible strat-o-matically skilled, super-awesome buddy, Skeeter Willis has sent along this sexy little subject:

Slán Abhaile

Apparently you find this on signs in Ireland, as you’re leaving town for instance, where it means safe home or in other words, farewell, or else on highways where it means safe home as in drive safe; arrive alive. Either way it’s apparently pronounced “Slawn awallya.”

As a movie buff though, the phrase resonated most for me in the weepy climactic scene of the director’s cut of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It’s quite different than the theatrical release. I am presenting it here with subtitles added in because the voice of E.T. is really hard to understand:

…And on the other hand: what we love to say:

“Sorry,” said the lady on the elevator, who wanted off at my floor, as I promptly stepped aside, letting her pass before I stepped aboard. I hit the button, rose a floor, and the doors opened revealing a new woman facing me.

“Sorry,” said she, moving aside.

“No problem at all,” I said. And it wasn’t. Neither of these women offended me. And I’m fairly sure that neither of them actually suffered any regret despite their claims.

Here at the social assistance office I leave my comfortable lobby desk hourly to run a quick patrol of the cube farm behind and there I commonly brush paths with others. “Sorry,” they almost universally say to me. I never apologize just for needing the same space as them. I tend to just say hello, or depending on the circumstance I might say, “Pardon me.”

I think that pardon me is what they actually intend to relay but clearly that one extra syllable is just too exhausting so sorry becomes the peculiar briefer alternative.

I’m sorry I needed a space so near to your own…

I’m sorry my existence is threatening to cause you the merest of possible inconveniences…

I suppose we feel the need to exercise the word sorry without having to suffer any overt guilt and so we use it frivolously and call the job done. We use it when we are about to use a door at the same moment someone else intended likewise.

We don’t use it when we (or our phones) make unnecessary noise in public places, distracting others from their endeavours; their reflection; their evolution.

We don’t use it when we treat each others’ valuable time as a spectator for our pointless other people’s bad behaviour stories while busily ignoring our own bad behaviour; something infinitely more valuable to pursue.

(If this sounds like I’m doing exactly that, I would suggest that I am reflecting on societal phenomena as opposed to feigning shock at another specific person’s failure to be an angel - but you may judge me as you wish!)

No, we use sorry instead of a kind greeting. I’m sorry we have to share! How awful!

I think I shall not go forward as inclined; responding to these sad overtures by shouting “Don’t let it happen again!” I think I will start responding to this misplaced obsolete gesture with another misplaced obsolete gesture which I'm much more fond of, by responding, “I don’t know!”    

That’ll be sufficiently weird.

The phrase we dare not speak!

Is it a real memory or a false memory? I am almost convinced it’s a real memory: that in the former era of my youth people would dare to say it aloud. And it was fairly common:

“I don’t know.”

Is anyone still reading? Or did I scare everyone away with these most vulgar of words?

I’m sure it used to happen over and over again. One person would ask a question. “What does a hen weigh?” or “Do you know what time the bus comes?”

And the other person would say “I don’t know.” And as astounding as it seems, this was socially acceptable. The first person would appreciate the second person’s honesty, and then immediately get on with their life, and pursue the course of action appropriate to this not-unexpected circumstance, the inquirer seeing oneself as a mentally competent individual capable of proceeding with their endeavour in a manner independent of the missing link, or else with another plan for discovering it.

As with other antiquated norms, I am not eager to let this go. I still like to think that it’s okay to ask a quick question on the chance that my associates might know the answer, before proceeding to Google if they don’t, or making due without the errant factoid. I am not ready to make Google my bestest friend.

But this rarely goes well. It seems to have become unbearable in this culture of (mis)information-bombardment to appear as less than all-knowing. And so “I don’t know” situations turn into a lengthy charade where the questioned imagines they see beyond the question and insists on solving an imaginary version of the problem, and then the asker must humour the asked so as to coddle a fragile ego, and no one gets to get on with their life.

“Oh - uh - you should bend your knees to pick up the hen.”

“Right, yeah. Well I don’t actually need to pick one up…”

“You could always put the hen on the bus instead of shipping it. It’s one price for the bus. It doesn’t matter what it weighs.”

“Well, I wasn’t really going t-”

“Or just ship it while it’s young, before it gains much weight.”

“Okay…. Thanks.”

I still tend to say “I don’t know” when I don’t know, and trust that the inquirer will not die from awkwardness, and that they feel welcome to ask further questions on the subject if there is still a chance I can be useful.

I may be alone on this but I still insist: It’s okay not to know everything.

Okay. Thanks for listening to my little rant. You can go get on with your life now.

Planet? What planet?

I really must urge the good and intelligent people of the world to stop using the word planet…

When we’re talking about the environment, I mean; when we say we’re killing the planet; we’re ruining the planet; we have to save the planet…

The planet is a great mass of material caught in our favorite star’s gravitational orbit. I don’t know of any power we currently have to interfere with that.

And the pinheads of the world sort of know that. The deniers of the world (who I happen to believe should be logged in a database by the way, so that if depopulation ever becomes the popular solution we’ll know exactly where to start), who obediently follow their feelings so much more than logic or education, have very trustworthy feelings that this great big planet is not going anywhere. And they’re right in the short term, regardless of climate change, but of course no world in the universe is permanent and in the long term the sun has big nasty explosive plans for us, regardless if there’s a tree, bee or human being left on this surface or not (in a couple billion years).

My point is: Climate change warnings sound ever so less relevant when talking about the planet than when you talk about the actual item of concern, which is of course the biosphere.

We need to talk about the biosphere, and not just to be accurate, but so that the unconvinced might pay a little more attention and that people everywhere might begin to take a bigger interest in what the biosphere really is: which is of course a fragile, limited portion of the planet which must exist in order to support life.

And It is not just air and trees. It is also (for all intents and purposes, if not precisely according to official terminology) soil, oceans, fresh water, wetlands, biodiversity, minerals and toxic filtration (I.e.: the oil in the ground which belongs there for a reason and that only lunatics would dig up and burn, thus destroying the system and - to boot - releasing all those toxins into the air where they least belong). All these components are completely interlinked and dependent on one another and vital to the biosphere and vital to the existence of life, and all of them are very seriously compromised and becoming more so every single day and with every single industrial activity we indulge in. There is in essence a measurable sum of biosphere capacity which is rapidly shrinking. Some of these components are more than half destroyed. Yes, that’s a fact, and most of them, in the case of individual failure, will take the whole biosphere down with it, baby, cradle and all.

Biosphere, folks. Biosphere. In a sane world it would be the most popular word of the day.

Not that I’m claiming to be especially sane these days. I’m just saying.

Cheers!

FWG   

He’s and She’s and In-Betweens

I’m meeting with Earth-Writer tonight, as National Novel Writing Month approaches, largely to provide feedback on her novel draft which I recently enjoyed. It features a delightful character without a reproductive arrangement of a standard formation. Perhaps hermaphroditic is the correct term? I have no idea if that term is currently considered respectful or not but you probably get the idea.

I found it very challenging to read the narrative concerning this character; let’s call him/her “Taylor” for now. Each time the narrative came back to Taylor from somewhere else I would trip all over the pronoun “they” or “their”, the same way I have tripped over it many times when talking to friends about common associates who have recently discovered a lack of gender-specific identity within their own psyche. I instinctively (selfishly) do not like this solution. To me it hampers the fluidity of communication. I keep thinking we are talking plural and must shake my head and realize again that we’re talking one person of unspecified gender.

I can see that we’re going to have a difficult time as a society coming to terms with these non-binary gender ideas when it comes to language.

There are some intelligent people out there with great respect for science and logic and who recognize that language is indeed a construct of science and logic who insist that a person with a penis who reports they “feel” like a girl is indeed still a boy regardless and should be labeled appropriately in terms of law and societal operation (such as which bathroom to use).

On the other hand there are places where non-binary is an official legal option with regards to gender.

The number of personal friends I have who have physically changed gender or are considering it or who have come out as having significant thoughts about it has gone from zero to five in the course of the last two or three years. The number of tertiary associates under these circumstances is probably about ten, I’m not bothering to count. Plus who knows how many are in that state but in the closet?

At a party recently, one of the hosts was in the state of thinking themself a they and many of the party guests showed a lot of outward signs that they were probably in the same camp or else were indeed fully post-operative trans-gendered - or else fitting some particular variant of the wide trans spectrum.

It was a very new experience for me to witness this and I am grateful for it. These folks (some of each cross-direction should that interest you) were obviously well-acquainted, perhaps via some official support community - and they were very gentle and loving toward one another. An outsider might even get the impression of a poly amorous subculture but I have no evidence of that, nor did I inquire. Though the trans-gender idea is instinctively a foreign one to me, I found myself disarmed by this group. I found them to be quite lovely and graceful people.

My heart totally goes out to anyone in such a circumstance. I would like them to feel comfortable and happy with whoever and whatever they are - or feel like they are. But dictating what pronouns other people use to describe them is not necessarily entirely wise in my opinion. Let me close here with a few suggestions:

1. We all would do well to try not to care and worry quite so much about gender identity. Everyone is unique and deciding what gender someone should be labeled does not automatically confer any facts about that person.

2. We all would do well to be less sensitive as to what label someone uses when referring to us. What matters about you is what you think of you; not anyone else. If you decide tomorrow you have become a “he” instead of a “she”, well fine. Someone calling you a “he” doesn’t make you one. It only betrays how they instinctively think of you. And frankly, everyone you have ever met (and I’m talking about all of us when I say “you”) has a different idea of who you are and those ideas will all be different, and different than your own idea, and different than the real authentic you.

3. We all would do well, I think, to remember that words have multiple meanings and that words are only signposts. It is not words that matter, it is intention that matters. “Woman” has always been meant to specify the female gender but “Man” was not originally intended to specify male gender. It was supposed to mean human. I think we would do well to try to allow such words as “man” and “he” and “him” to reclaim that unspecificity and let them all mean “person”

4. To those who propose the new pronoun “Ze” as a non-specific alternative to he and she, I urge you to keep in mind that the words he and she come from the mouth instinctively. Our language/communication programming does not include a pause for thought at such a juncture. Nobody will automatically absorb Ze into their lexicon instinctively, and so expecting people to use it in conversation - much like expecting people to suddenly reverse their he-she usage right after you come out of the closet as trans-gender-feeling, can amount to a bit of a witch hunt. You’ll discover that people have a firm instinctive preconception of your gender and when in conversation with another person, frankly, their idea of your gender is not necessarily less relevant than your own. I think it’s only realistic to be patient. As for the Ze idea, hey, we can go ahead and start using it but it will likely take root in writing well ahead of speech - if it takes root at all - for language is a process of group organics and cannot be intentionally regulated except in contract law! - and we’ll have to be okay with that. I doubt the word will ever find its way out of my mouth - and I can’t possibly apologize for that - but it might, if we start to put it in writing - become an instinctive reality a generation from now? I think that’s about the best you can hope for. And if you do think we should use the “Ze” word, the way to go about it is not through seeking consensus. The thing to do is just start using it! That’s how language evolves. People throw it up and it sticks or it doesn't.

5. With regards to the plural confusion which currently badgers me; the use of they, them and their: I suggest that such a tricky migration might be significantly smoothed if we take an extra step by habitually changing the plural use of those words to - I don’t know - “they all” or “them all” or something like that.

I hope I am not misconstrued. I care about your feelings and I would like to try to help you feel comfortable with your body and your role within society and (gratefully) within my life. But we have to keep it real. The evolution of language naturally seeks clarity and thus changes with the times. The evolution of language does not seek confusion.

Improving your word power!

Okay, here's what's wrong with your vocabulary! You are not using the following three words enough:

scragglies

I was getting my hair cut at Ye Olde Hairdressing School when I noticed the teacher using this word a lot. Scragglies are the little occasional strands of hair which avoid the initial power mow of the hair-cutting process, which then need to be agonized over for ten minutes in order to make your head HD picture perfect. Scragglies are why they can charge $19 for a haircut that should have ended after 90 seconds according to my priorities. Mind you I only pay $6 at the school which is a great deal. About a dollar per hour.


speed wiggles

Best I can tell, mostly from watching fail videos (my secret guilty pleasure), this is when you're coasting down a steep road on a skateboard and your speed increases to the point of control loss and you find yourself rapidly swinging left and right, trapped into overcompensation basically. Like when you drive reverse in a car too fast. Speed wiggles are the first step in the extended face plant process.


bacchanalian

I just read A Tale of Two Cities in which Charles Dickens uses this term twice, both referring to bouts of gruff masculine social drinking. I'm going to assume this stems from the word buccaneer which is a charming idea! Don't anyone tell me that's wrong. I don't want to know.

So there you go. Enjoy.

V is for Vraisemblance

Welcome back to FWiG's April A-to-Z Odditorium of Forgotten English! Or -- welcome for the first time!

Vraisemblance: an appearance of truth; verisimilitude, a representation or picture. From French vrai (true) and semblance.

Example: "Society is a structure of human organization for which people utilize to leverage one another in satisfying their individual dark desires, while managing a vraisemblance to that of a creature made in their god's image."

Source: New English Dictionary (1928) William Craigie
Google hits: 70,000


Verdugo: a hangman or executioner, or an insult along similar vein.

Not to be confused with vertigo, which may very well be related given their common components involving an unhealthy separation from the ground.

A weight-bearing crane, which we call a derrick (as in oil derrick) is so named after infamous hangman Thomas Derrick of England's Elizabethan era, who not only executed more than 3000 convicts but who engineered, for his gallows, the frame and pulley system eponymous with today's cranes. Ironically, Derrick, in 1601, bedangled The Duke of Essex, who once, himself, had pardoned Derrick of the death penalty for the crime of rape; an event which had a prominent role in Derrick's originally being coerced into the hangman role.

Thomas Derrick was eventually succeeded by also-famous Richard Brandon, subject of macabre fascination and a loyal following, who received a £30 bonus for doing in King Charles the 1st and ever after feared for his own assassination. But he died of natural causes and was succeeded by Jack Ketch who was like the Kleenex of hangmen as the word ketch became the household word for executioner.

So there you have it, the holy trinity of England's gallowicious period.

Source: New English Dictionary (1926) William Craigie
Google hits: 15,000,000 (due almost entirely to the surname)


Vampirarchy: rulership by the overtly predatory.

I choose not to buy gas at Esso stations. They are brand outlets of Imperial Oil; subsidiary of ExxonMobil. Together they do alright with around $48 trillion in annual profits, largely through their exploration and production of fossil fuels and related enterprises such as oil refining, petroleum and convenience retail, natural gas processing, synthetic crude production and super-scale wildlife destruction. To get a context for the figure 48 trillion, simply imagine something you can't possibly imagine. And remember that's net profit. Not earnings.

ExxonMobil is the largest company in the world by both revenue and market capitalization and are referred to as "...one of the planet’s most hated corporations, able to determine American foreign policy and the fate of entire nations," in a 2012 article by The Daily Telegraph.

At executive board meetings, executives sing "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow..." and remind each other that fossil fuels come from a magical bottomless cup and that life on earth doesn't actually require a biosphere to survive. Then they recite the Daily ExxonMobil Prayer which closes as follows:

"...another small oil spill for man, another great shitstain on the face of mankind. Oh Lord we have more than enough buckaneros to buy our way into heaven. Amen and pass the bourbon."

No, instead I buy gas at Shell because they give me air-miles points which I later convert into free, though entirely crappy, food at Boston Pizza restaurants. See how awesome I am?

Source: New English Dictionary (1928) William Craigie
Google hits: 700

Stop! Swag time! (Exxon Mobil always finds innovative ways to spill oil and kill people.)

U is for Unthew

First off! This is not the past tense of unthaw! Secondly: There is no such word as unthaw! And that is because the reverse of thawing already has a name and that word is freeze! When someone says to you "unthaw," what they really mean is "thaw" but they're just being a nimrod.

Unthew: a bad habit; unhealthy custom. Unthewed: unruly or wanton (again, not the noodle). Unthewful: unmannerly; unseemly.

As recently mentioned, first album I ever bought (vinyl of course) as a teeny-bopper: The Monks, Bad Habits featuring hits Drugs in My Pocket and Nice Legs Shame About Her Face!

Source: New English Dictionary (1926) William Craigie
Google hits: 19,500


Unroningness: Desolation.

St. Kilda is a barren treeless island; Britain's most remote landscape, 180 Km off the west coast of Scotland. As there never was an actual St. Kilda, the name is believed a bastardization of Norse Skildir.

The first steamboats to ever reach the island threw the locals into a tizzy as they thought the ships were on fire. Upon their request, the last three dozen human inhabitants of St. Kilda were evacuated August 29, 1930 and oddly, most found mainland jobs in forestry. The local seabirds and puffins declined evacuation.

Source: Dictionary of the Oldest Words in the English Language (1863) Herbert Coleridge
Google hits: 95

Ustion: the act of burning or the state of being burnt. From Latin: ustus.

Not to be confused with Houston, where people wear big hats and think they're hot stuff and temperatures have been known to reach as high as 109°C (43°F). Director Wes Anderson and actor Patrick Swayze were born in Houston,

The Chinchaga River fire, also known as the Wisp Fire of 1950 is thought the greatest in North American history burning approximately four million acres through unpopulated British Columbia and Alberta. It created so much upper-atmosphere smoke that remnants migrated all the way to Europe where the mysterious "Great Pall" caused a sensation, its nature not initially understood.

Source: Imperial Lexicon (c. 1850) Rev. John Boag
Google hits: 71,800

Torched my dinner because it wasn't cooking fast enough.

T is for Tosher

Yep. Running late again. Great excuse this time though. Lost my research notes. This evening I found them again at the parole office (where I occasionally work; I'm not on parole).

Tosher: One who steals copper from the hulls of ships.

Not to be confused with tosser: one who (somewhat ironically) spends a penny. And spending a penny, for those in the dark, is slang for spanking the monkey. Also known as flogging the bishop, waxing the carrot, grooming the schnauzer, choking the chicken, feeding the pigeons, frosting the pastries, painting the ceiling, investing in pork bellies and... running the bad boys out of town.

There. Wasn't that fun?

Source: Sailor's Word Book (1867) Adm. William Smyth
Google hits: 275,000


Tyromancy: Divining by the coagulation of cheese.

Akin to Groundhog Day, reading tea leaves and cow pie bingo.

Source: Magicall Astrologicall Diviner (1652) John Gaule
Google hits: 8700


Tib of the Buttery: a goose. Also a young lass, and in previous centuries, a wanton, which is someone unruly and lustful, and not a Chinese noodle ball. That's a wonton.

There are more than 80 bird breeds called "geese" but in fact only three are true geese, the Anser (Swan), Chen and Branta (Canada Goose).

The evening of Judgement Day is also known as St. Tibb's Eve.

Source: A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1796) Capt. Francis Grose
Google hits: 2100


Toesmithing: dancing, according to theater slang.

The most famous ballet worldwide is almost surely The Nutcracker, composed by Tchaikovsky in 1891 and first performed in North America in 1944 where it remains a Christmas tradition, bringing holiday joy to children and adults alike. Just like Walmart.

Source: A Dictionary of American Slang (1934) Maurice Waseen
Google hits: 650

Newday sugar plum fairy

S is for Sockdologer

Welcome back to FWiG's April A-to-Z Odditorium of Forgotten English! Sorry I got running late again. So far, we've been highlighting three words per day but I'm having difficulty with the letter S. There are just too many great words to choose from. I'll try to keep it brief!

Sockdologer: anything overwhelming or exceptional, such as an earthquake.

Not to be confused with proctologer, whose practices, one must suppose, might feel a little overwhelming at times...

Source: Slang and its Analogues (1890-1904) John Farmer, W.S. Henley
Google hits: 35,000


Squizzle: fire, as with a gun. To let squizzle.

The word gun comes from Old Norse gunnr (battle), which first became a given name in Sweden, 1891, generally as Gunnar for males and as many derivatives for females. There are currently around 34 thousand females in Sweden named Gun; about one for every million handguns in the U.S.A., which is in the process of changing its name to United States of Arms.

Okay, that was an exaggeration  There are only about 270 million guns held lawfully by American citizens and another 4.5 million operated by Yankee military and police. The number of criminally possessed firearms is incalculable but in essence there are about as many guns in the States as people. This is unprecedented in the history of the world and mind-boggling to some.

Source: Dictionary of Americanisms (1956) Mitford Mathew
Google hits: 80,000


Squantum: as described by the New York Mirror: "A party of ladies and gentlemen go to one of the famous watering-places of resort, where they fish, dig clams, talk, laugh, sing, dance, play, bathe, sail, eat and have a general good time... Care is thrown to the wind, politics discarded, war ignored, pride humbled, stations levelled, wealth scorned, virtue exalted, and this is squantum."

If you're looking for a quaint weekend getaway, I recommend the Emirates Palace Abu Dhabi resort hotel on the Arabian Gulf. A decent suite with five-star amenities will only run your family of four about $15,000 for an average weekend.

Or if flying out to the Middle East is not your bag you could always bunk in cozy Manhattan for the same weekend in one of The Plaza's 1-bedroom suites for as little as $40,300 U.S.D. (before tax and parking of course).

Source: Dictionary of Americanisms (1877) James Bartlett
Google hits: 532,000


Scurryfunge: A hasty tidying of one's abode the moment a visitor is spotted on the driveway.

This is my favourite obsolete word so far. It should never have been allowed to fall out of style. Scurryfunges are especially vital to dog owners because you never know when your knickers might have suddenly appeared on the kitchen floor.

Source: Maine Lingo: Boiled Owls, Billdads, & Wazzats (1975) John Gould
Google hits: 3900


Slubberdegullion: a slovenly person. From slobber and gullion (wretch).

Marshall Bruce Mathers III, known as Eminem, or Slim Shady, is an American rapper and all-around vile miscreant. He is the only so-called musician in history whose voice, image or the mere mention of his name will reliably induce uncontrollable vomiting from mine very own gullet. Impressively, he has sold more than 100 million records to some millions of so-called people, every one of whom had best never enter my home lest they be struck viciously on the head by yours truly and rolled back onto the street. Nuff said. Excuse me while I go vomit uncontrollably.

Source: Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811) Francis Grose
Google hits: 448,000

R is for Reiliebogie

Reiliebogie: a state of confusion, tumult or disorder. Possibly having connection to the song Reel o' Bogie, as if in reference to an irregular form of dance. From reile, to roll.

Followers of religion/philosophy Discordianism observe the Discordian calendar, consisting of five 73-day "months" named Chaos, Discord, Confusion, Bureaucracy, and The Aftermath. Their weeks consist of five days: Sweetmorn, Boomtime, Pungenday, Prickle-Prickle, and Setting Orange.

Discordianism holds that both order and disorder are illusions imposed on the universe by the human nervous system, and that neither of these illusions of apparent order and disorder is any more accurate or objectively true than the other.

Source: Etymological Scottish Dictionary
Google hits: 73


Renty: handsome; well-shaped. Spoken of horses, cows, etc.

According to urbandictionary.com, an amazing horse is one who tastes like raisins and has a purple winkie. Personally I don't find this useful. Personally, I sometimes wonder if some intergalactic court of aliens might be passing around samples of our internet right now and deciding whether earth should be blown up or not.

Source: North Country Words (1942) John Ray
Google hits: 1,800,000


Ring-time: the aptest season for marriage; spring.

Not to be confused with ring tone, a safety mechanism of the matrix; a musical alarm that goes off whenever a person might otherwise be burdened with too much peace and quiet wherein they might accidently contemplate and learn something dangerously genuine about themselves or the world.

[editor's note: He means he doesn't like phones.]

Source: Shakespeare Cyclopaedia and Glossary (1902) John Phin
Google hits: 16,800

A bird may love a fish, Signor, but where would they live?

Q is for Quaker's Bargain

Apparently it's phrase day here at FWiG's odditorium of forgotten English:

Quaker's bargain: a yea-or-nay bargain; a take-it-or-leave-it offer; non-negotiable.

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase is often thought the greatest bargain in history. U.S. president Thomas Jefferson bought 828,000 square miles from France for fifteen million dollars, in effect, doubling the size of the United States for about three cents per acre.

Source: Slang and its Analogues (1890-1904) John Farmer, W.E. Henley
Google hits: 1360


In Queen Street: The fool, governed by his wife.

Example: "The joskin lives in Queen Street."

The second music album I ever purchased as a kid, after The Monks' Bad Habits, was The Game by Queen. Thirty two years later Bad Habits has devolved in my perception to a goofy bit of comedy while every song on The Game endures.

When the band Smile lost member Tim Staffell to Humpy Bong in 1970, Staffell's good friend and keen Smile fan, Farrokh Bulsara, stepped in and convinced remaining members Brian May and Roger Taylor to change their name to Queen. In '71 experiments with bassists ended with John Deacon and Farrokh changed his name to Freddie Mercury. They then evolved into one of the world's sincerest and best-loved stadium rock bands until Mercury's AIDS-related passing in 1991.

Their 1985 performance at Live Aid is widely regarded the best live act in history. Bohemian Rhapsody was voted Britain's favourite hit of all time in 2002 and in 2009 We Are the Champions, in global polls, was declared mankind's favourite song. In 2005 Guinness Book of Records reported Queen the most enduring presence in UK album charts at 26 years and counting.

Rolling Stone super-important magazine's super-important artist rankings place them at 52nd all-time, just ahead of the Allman Brothers. If anyone cares.

Source: Vocabulum, or the Rogue's Lexicon (1859) George Matsell
Google hits: 7,240,000 (of which possibly none relate to the above meaning.)


Quite the Cheese: quite the correct thing, especially in terms of costume or manner. Adapted from choice. Further refinements of the phrase: "That's prime Stilton" or "That's Double Gloucester."

Source: Popular Sayings Dissected (1895) A. Wallace
Google hits: 119,000

I don't know what you see in this cheese thing.

P is for Pulpatoon

Pulpatoon: a dish made of rabbits, fowl, etc., in a crust of stuffed meat. From Latin pulpamentum: tidbits.

In 1770, London's Newcastle Chronicle reported the baking of a nine foot diameter Christmas pie featuring geese, turkeys, rabbit, duck, woodcocks, snipes, partridges, curlews, blackbirds and pigeons. Yum. I guess.

Source: Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words (1914) Walter Skeat
Google hits: 7200


Pooster: to toil in mud or filth; to splash among water.

Not to be confused with poofters, which reportedly do not exist in such enlightened higher-order nations as Iran. Oh, except for those framed, imprisoned, tortured and/or killed by their enlightened higher-order government. Oops, but we don't talk about that.

Source: Scots Dialect Dictionary (1911) Alexander Warrack
Google hits: 67,600


Pokeweed religion: Seemingly impressive religious excitement which springs up rapidly but without permanent value.

"We're hotter than pokeweed religion on an Ozark Sunday night!" is what John Lennon should have said, rather than the off-hand quip about Jesus Christ. It would have saved him a whole lotta splainin-to-do. Of course, then the Beatles wouldn't have got to re-sell all those albums to temporarily delirious vinyl-burning yankees.

Source: Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech (1953) Vance Randolf
Google hits: 86

Dick Cheney pulpatoon anyone?

O is for Ornature

Aggh.. I've fallen behind...

Ornature: decoration.

Yeah, decoration. That was short and sweet, wasn't it?

Male bowerbirds of Australia and New Guinea demonstrate perhaps the rarest of courtship rituals in the natural world. They build a fairly complex structure out of sticks and spend gads of time decorating it both internally and externally with locally available trinkets, often including shells, berries, feathers and any sort of colourful debris of human origin. Females choose mates purely on their housekeeping skills and males will not only steal decorations from one another but sometimes vandalize their competitors' bowers.

Source: Imperial Lexicon (c. 1850) Rev. John Boag
Google hits: 94000


Orphanotrophy: a hospital for orphans.

Pop culture's favourite orphan, Annie, began life as a poem by James Whitcomb Riley in 1885, then in 1924, as a comic strip, drawn by Harold Gray until his death in 1968. A succession of further artists carried the project for another 42 years. The strip was ranked #1 according to 1937 polls.

Annie took form as a radio show in 1930, a broadway musical in 1977 and films in 1932, 1938 and 1982. The strip's popularity slowly declined until 2010, when running in just 20 newspapers, it was cancelled.

Source: American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) Noah Webster
Google hits: 6100


Odditorium: a collection of curiosities.

Example: "FWiG's Odditorium of Forgotten English." Hey, that's me!

Pensioner Carol Vaughn of Birmingham, UK has collected more than 5000 bars of soap from all over the world. Jens Veerbeck of Essen, Germany has gathered more than 600 different models of toasters, and Icelander Sigurdur Hjartarson had collected 143 penises from 41 different mammals as of 1997. Yes. Penises.

Eleven year old Luke Underwood sold his collection of promotional item memorabilia, including hundreds of McDonalds Happy Meal items, reportedly for ten thousand dollars.

I once had a very impressive foreign beer bottle collection ringing a basement rec room on high shelves until a home-invading squirrel knocked many of them to their smashing demise while being chased by my doberman. I finally whittled the collection down to my six favourites and now I have about 2000 books instead.

Source: A Dictionary of American Slang (1934) Maurice Weseen
Google hits: 311,000

Home of anonymous Coca-Cola collector

N is for Nink

Nink: a useless antique object preserved in worshipping the picturesque. An imitation of a bygone style. Ninkty: architecturally dishonest.

The Decoratum web site, championing 20th Century & Contemporary Design features an article on the most expensive antiques ever auctioned. Three of the top five come from 18th century China including a Ming dynasty gold tripod vessel selling for 9,397,905 British pounds (more than 14.4 million yankee dollars). Yes, once a dish is worth $14 million or more, it's called a vessel.

The article goes on to explain: "As number 5 in the top 10 most expensive antiques ever auctioned it is also the most expensive piece of Chinese metalwork to ever have been auctioned." As there are no other examples of Chinese metalworks - or any metalworks - in the top five, I kind of regarded this as being entirely self-evident. But that's the modern western world for you, isn't it? Besides having more money than brains, we have a charming knack for using a whole lot of words to say nothing.

Source: A Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed (1914) Gelett Burgess
Google hits: 1,040,000


Nonnock: an idle whim; a childish fancy. Connected, no doubt, with nonny: to trifle; to play the fool.

on a nonnock
I drove to town
on a nonnock
I fell down
on a nonnock
I leapt a building
in a single bound
(2007) by Barbsdad2003

Source: Vocabulary of East Anglia (1830) Rev. Robert Forby
Google hits: 6700


Nabbity: Short in stature though full grown, usually said of a diminutive female. Literally deriving from nab, as though one might snatch up this person as a bird nabs an insect!

Online dictionary of slang dictionaryupdate.com, defines nabbity as the quality of being a mendacious prick. It should probably have read possessing the quality... since nabbity is obviously a verb.

Wow. I'm really being critical today, aren't I? Oh, look at that, some jackass drew Gandalf and forgot the beard...

Source: Vocabulary of East Anglia (1830) Rev. Robert Forby
Google hits: 1,600,000

M is for Melsh-dick

Welcome back to FWiG's April A-to-Z Odditorium of Forgotten English! Without further ado:

Melsh-dick: a sylvan goblin, protector of hazel-nuts.

This is a wood demon who supposedly stood guard over unripe nuts. "Melsh Dick'll catch thee lad," it was said, in order to frighten young children going nutting. Um... so there. Nothing dirty about any of that by the way.

Here's a pretty cool tune, kind of psychedelic, by Evan Grysko, called In Which Box Harry Encounters The Melsh-Dick
http://www.last.fm/music/Evan+Grysko/_/(In+Which+Box+Harry+Encounters+The+Melsh-Dick)

Dotty and friends go nutting, from novel

Dotty Dimple Out West (1869) By Sophie May

Source: Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield (1883) Rev. Alfred Easther

Google hits: 3200


Meaverly: middling, as regards to health. "Art thou meaverly?" Are you pretty well?

Not to be confused with Beaverly, which is to find oneself blundering through childhood being a bit of a dope, and learning goofy life-lessons from your older brother and ridiculously square, overly-present parents.

Source: Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield (1883) Rev. Alfred Easther
Google hits: 5700


Marooning: a party of pleasure akin to a picnic but lasting several days.

Jessica at The Lovely Side identifies ten varieties of picnics and how to equip one's self for each:
http://www.thelovelyside.com/2012/05/10-picnics-what-to-wear-on-them.html

My friends and I marooned at a trailer park one weekend at a time for seven lucky years. On one notable occasion we socialized (read: drank) for fifteen consecutive hours from Friday 5PM until Saturday 8AM which was possibly the second dumbest pursuit I ever undertook. Top-spot in that category belongs to the activity immediately following, chronologically, the aforementioned: The intent to circumvent a locked gate, for the purpose of playing tennis, by climbing the 12-foot fence and leaping from the top.

The fractured bones healed nicely I'm happy to report.

Source: Encyclopaedic Dictionary (1894) Robert Hunter
Google hits: 47000 (of which most concern being stranded)

Picnic in the park 'neath the vomiting lark