And Then There Was the Word: A column about our language:
Sidney Berger, Ph.D.
Issue date: 10/1/09 Section: Features
Language keeps changing. Even when spelling got pretty much solidified in the 18th and 19th century, pronunciation and vocabulary continued to evolve. That means that scads of words that once were are no longer. New words (neologisms) come into the language and old ones go out.
For this column I would like to look at some old dead words you haven't seen in a long time-or you've never seen before.
You can find many of these words in Jeffrey Kacirk's wonderful book Forgotten English (New York: Morrow, 1997) or in Erin McKean's More Weird and Wonderful Words (New York: Oxford, 2003).
When two opposing groups of soldiers met, they had a scaramouch. The word started out in fencing, and it winds up in Modern English as "skirmish." It also appears in modern football as "scrimmage," the line at which the football lies at the beginning of a play.
In "scaramouch" you can see the evolution of the sounds into our two modern words. But there is no such evolution with the word "pilgarlick," which has nothing to do with pills. The word means baldness-or, more properly, a chrome dome. A bald head looks like a peeled clove of garlic. The word was also used to designate the bald person, as in, "The sun shines off that pilgarlick's pate."
If you know your Greek and Latin, you can often figure out what a word means by translating its roots. "Mesonoxian" comes from two Latin roots: "meso-" means "middle," as in Meso-America. And "nox" is the Latin word for "night." "Mesonoxian" means having to do with midnight. You can impress your friends by saying that you have a mesonoxian tryst-you are meeting someone at midnight. The word "tryst" implies that lovers are involved. So a mesonoxian tryst sounds good to me.
If you do have such a tryst, you better not be caught in any glaikery-foolish conduct. And before such a date, you should attend to your infucation, which means the careful putting on of make-up. You wouldn't want to go out and look unconcinnous (inelegant or messy), would you? And if you are properly infucted (made up), you may get a semihiant kiss (one with the lips half open). This could be good . . .
For this column I would like to look at some old dead words you haven't seen in a long time-or you've never seen before.
You can find many of these words in Jeffrey Kacirk's wonderful book Forgotten English (New York: Morrow, 1997) or in Erin McKean's More Weird and Wonderful Words (New York: Oxford, 2003).
When two opposing groups of soldiers met, they had a scaramouch. The word started out in fencing, and it winds up in Modern English as "skirmish." It also appears in modern football as "scrimmage," the line at which the football lies at the beginning of a play.
In "scaramouch" you can see the evolution of the sounds into our two modern words. But there is no such evolution with the word "pilgarlick," which has nothing to do with pills. The word means baldness-or, more properly, a chrome dome. A bald head looks like a peeled clove of garlic. The word was also used to designate the bald person, as in, "The sun shines off that pilgarlick's pate."
If you know your Greek and Latin, you can often figure out what a word means by translating its roots. "Mesonoxian" comes from two Latin roots: "meso-" means "middle," as in Meso-America. And "nox" is the Latin word for "night." "Mesonoxian" means having to do with midnight. You can impress your friends by saying that you have a mesonoxian tryst-you are meeting someone at midnight. The word "tryst" implies that lovers are involved. So a mesonoxian tryst sounds good to me.
If you do have such a tryst, you better not be caught in any glaikery-foolish conduct. And before such a date, you should attend to your infucation, which means the careful putting on of make-up. You wouldn't want to go out and look unconcinnous (inelegant or messy), would you? And if you are properly infucted (made up), you may get a semihiant kiss (one with the lips half open). This could be good . . .
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