… from my wife, who was doing the New York Times Magazine acrostic.
Another wonderful archaic word. I have to agree with Michael Quinion‘s theory that this word echoes the sound of the huntsman’s horn. You can just hear Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Dahlia hollering “Tantivy!” as she rides over the fields with the Quorn.
… reading an article by Rachel Cooke in The Week. (Feb. 7, 2015, pp. 56-57. Originally published in The Observer.)
fumigerous
In a memoir of his 1930s Potteries childhood, The Vanished Landscape, historian Paul Johnson describes his father taking him to see the Sytch in Burslem, an immense stretch of ground composed of clay, black water, mud, industrial detritus and ‘fumigerous furnaces belching forth fire, ashes and smoke.’
I have a fondness for words that are obscure and euphonious, but this one takes the gateau. It’s meaning is clear from the context, but it doesn’t show up in a search of the online OED. And Google returns only a handful of hits – most of them either the Paul Johnson quotation above or this one, from the same memoir:
You went down a steep track to get into Tunstall Station, a cavernous place under a bridge, of smoke-stained dingy brick, dark and fumigerous.
Searching Google Books turns up the Johnson memoir and four other books. Before that search I was beginning to suspect Johnson had invented the word; instead, I’ll give him full credit for keeping it alive.
… reading The Beatles: All These Years, Volume 1 – Tune In by Mark Lewisohn
Chapter 7 of this remarkable book contains this marvellous description of the Liverpool slang spoken by the future fab four:
“…something good or great was ‘gear’ and stupid was ‘soft,’ and out of fashion was ‘down the nick’ and when taunting or teasing someone you’d shout ‘Chickaferdy!’; and if someone was spineless they were ‘nesh’; and you said ‘Come ’ead!’ (‘come ahead’ for ‘come on’); and ‘Eh oop!’ had many uses, from ‘hello’ to ‘let’s go,’ and ‘lad’ was ‘la’; and an interesting person was a ‘skin’ – so ‘Eh la!’ and ‘Eh oop, la!’ and ‘ ’E’s a good skin’; and where (though swearing was muted on the street because people got upset if they overheard it) ‘stupid get’ (‘stupid git’) or ‘yer daft get’ were OK … and then you said good-bye to your mates with a wacker’s ‘Tarrah well!’”
(“Wacker” being a word for working-class Liverpool males.)
… reading an AFP story:
“Locals in the village of Brugairolles in the foothills of the Pyrenees were so appalled by the immurement, they rose up to rescue the elderly couple, tearing down a wall from the front of the house and ripping open windows and doors that had been nailed shut.”
From the Latin murus, or wall, which shows up in English words like mural.
“Weird Al” Yankovic thinks outside the box and leverages some shifted paradigms. At the end of the day, it’s a proactive, value-added experience.
… reading a review by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times Book Review:
“She [Clare Boothe Luce] ensorcelled the married Lieut. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott Jr., in command of the Fifth Army in Italy.”
A wonderful word, with echoes of ensnarement, sorcery and snorkels. It comes from an Old French root that indeed relates to the English word “sorcerer.”
My wife, who never ceases to ensorcell me, points out that Daniel Bélanger has a song titled Ensorcelée.
“Weird Al” Yankovic: permissive on the serial comma, but a stickler when it comes to the proper use of “irony.”
… reading World Wide Words:
“Logocidal refers to the destruction or perversion of meaning, something deadly to reason and communication,” says Michael Quinion. “Newspeak in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was a logocidal creation since it was designed to limit what it was possible to think about or discuss.”
It’s another word that’s obscure almost to the point of nonexistence, but Guardian writer Marina Hyde appears to be fighting a single-handed battle to keep it alive. “She uses it for language that’s obfuscatory to the point of meaninglessness, the kind employed by politicians and public figures to avoid committing themselves…” says Quinion. A useful term, given the continuing epidemic of such banana oil.
… reading World Wide Words:
“…a fear of newspapers.”
And, yes, there does seem to be a lot of it going around these days.
… reading World Wide Words:
“A babbler, an idle-headed fellow.”
Ridiculously obscure, I know, but what a great word.
Rannygazoo 