Come Back, Words!

You know me. At least I hope you do.  I’m all about language—new words, clever words, rhyming words. Slang words. Words with unusual origins. As a writer, those are vital items in my toolkit. Without offbeat words and phrases, I would be reduced to using a sad, second grade vocab, endlessly repeating “like no one has ever seen before” and “'Sir’, he said, tears rolling down his cheeks.” Naming no names.

Sometimes it’s a challenge to incorporate these $64 words into a sentence without appearing pretentious (or just incomprehensible). But I’m ever up for a challenge! So, when I happened upon this list of “Ancient English Words That Deserve a Comeback,” well…I decided to do my best to revive these linguistic treasures! I happen to be working on a new essay, fertile ground for sowing an arcane word or six. Feeling suddenly scripturient! Let me know what you think, gentle readers! Here we go…

I’ll always remember my Grandfather as a world-class lunter. After he grew old, when he gave up smoking for health reasons, he still carried a pipe with him, often to a pub, where he and his retired buds gathered to twattle and brabble. How merry were they!  After long careers plying various trades, they were all crambazzled, even though most of them had been inclined to fudgel. In these, their twilight years, Gramps and friends frequently experienced clinomania and lethologica—sometimes both at once! They’d lay abed, trying to recall the word “bed.” Their irritated spouses would get them going for the day with a bucket of water dumped on their heads. This curglaff was enough to move them kitchenward, where they’d grab some yesterfang. Often, the yesterfang was meant for the next night’s dinner, so the Grandmas would groke at the menfolk as they shoveled in the vittles.

Knowing their better halves were really irked, they would snudge towards the door, and the pub, and sweet freedom. Pipe or no, they would all lunt. Champion lunters were they! The upstanding citizens and the barely standing, the quomodocquinquizers and snollygosters, all the old chums would head pubward, where they would sit by the window and bask in the apricity, or sit by the fire and gruefel, while quaffing a spirited beverage. And lunting. Always lunting. And in the wee hours, as they parted, Gramps and company would do a final bit of twattling and brabbling, and promise to meet again overmorrow. Or even the day before overmorrow. Which I guess would be… tomorrow. Right?

 You gotta admit, these grand old words do an amazing job of spicing up what would otherwise have been a dull-as-dishwater tale of lazy old men smoking and drinking in a bar! True, ye ancient dictionary would be required to translate, but it would be worth it!

So join me, won’t you? Let’s not give up on these gems! Let’s have a little respair!

Just be careful who you call a snollygoster. Or a fudgeler. I hear they can be nasty.