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18 obsolete words, which never should have gone out of style


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EveningStar

Carmel Lobello
Death and Taxes
March 8, 2013

 

 

 

Just like facts and flies, English words have life-spans. Some are thousands of years old, from before English officially existed, others change, or are replaced or get ditched entirely.

 

Here are 18 uncommon or obsolete words that we think may have died early. We found them in two places: a book called "The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten" by Jeffrey Kacirk, and on a blog called Obsolete Word of The Day that's been out of service since 2010. Both are fantastic- you should check them out.

 

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Two recomandations

 

Poplollies & Bellibones: A Celebration of Lost Words Along with Tenderfeet and Ladyfingers: A Compendium of Body Language

Susan Kelz Sperling

 

Together in one volume Susan Kelz Sperling's delightful excursions into the English language: Poplollies & Bellibones and Tenderfeet & Ladyfingers. The first explores its most remote corners to rediscover long-lost verbal gems, such as liripoop, poopnoddy and squeck. The second looks at the most familiar of all territories, our own bodies, delving into the surprising derivations and histories of phrases like “to give someone the cold shoulder” or “the walls have ears.” In short, here is a treasure trove for word lovers — a perfect diversion for a winter's night or a summer's afternoon, an eyewitching volume bursting with fellowfeeling.

 

 

(Lot of fun)

 

 

And

 

Story of Human Language

Professor John McWhorter

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

I never met a person who is not interested in language, wrote the bestselling author and psychologist Steven Pinker. There are good reasons that language fascinates us so. It not only defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators, but it also

beguiles us with its endless mysteries. For example:

 

How did different languages come to be?

Why isn't there just a single language?

How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth?

How does a language become extinct?

 

Dr. John McWhorter, one of America's leading linguists and a frequent commentator on network television and National Public Radio, addresses these and other questions as he takes you on an in-depth, 36-lecture tour of the development of human language, showing how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today.

 

(Snip)

 

 

NOTE: Either wait until it is on sale or visit the library...this is very pricy.

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