Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Obsolete Words That Should Make a Comeback


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:

Jargogle (verb) - to confuse or jumble. "You can always count on the GOP to jargogle the facts about Benghazi and the Affordable Care Act."

Ludibrious (adjective) - apt to be a subject of jest or mockery; describes a person, thing or situation that is likely to be the butt of jokes. See "Congress."

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:

  1. I like hoddyspeak. It fits a lot of people.

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  2. It's interesting how some words enter into common use, and how others disappear. Some might even change n shade of meaning, like "insane."

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  3. "Fact" is now "Rumor."

    "Truth" is now "Spin."

    "Honor" is now "Self-advertising."

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  4. 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.

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  5. Verbal perissotology s also called oral diarrhea.

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