In looking through my Blog Fodder file, I found an interesting article from November of 2010 that I'd forgotten about: Twenty Obsolete English Words That Should Make a Comeback. I won't bore you to death with the entire list, as not all of you are as interested in words as I am, but I thought I'd offer up a few of the more potentially useful for your consideration:
Brabble (verb) - to quarrel about trifles; to argue loudly about something that doesn’t really matter. See "Benghazi."
Perissology (noun) - use of more words than are necessary; redundancy or superfluity of expression. Mike probably thought it meant the study of the capital of France.
Hoddypeak (noun) - a fool, simpleton, idiot. There are 535 hoddypeaks in Congress.
Scriptitation (noun) - a 17th-century word meaning "continual writing." See "Bilbo."
I have a few other obsolete words that should make a comeback:
Fact;
Truth; and
Honor.
Somebody tell Congress and the media. They can use the language lesson.
Have a good day. Try to ignore the hoddypeaks when they brabble on in ludibrious fashion. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
5 comments:
I like hoddyspeak. It fits a lot of people.
It's interesting how some words enter into common use, and how others disappear. Some might even change n shade of meaning, like "insane."
"Fact" is now "Rumor."
"Truth" is now "Spin."
"Honor" is now "Self-advertising."
Since I was singled out for perissology I thought I would double check the meaning at dictionary.com.
"Superfluity of words."
Well that really cleared things up.
"superfluity - the state of being superfluous."
Hey, now were getting somewhere?
"superfluous - being more than is sufficient or required; excessive."
Finally, a conformation. But that also lead to the word "unsuperfluousness". I'll try and work that into a conversation today.
Verbal perissotology s also called oral diarrhea.
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