Wambling with Words
Sep. 22nd, 2013 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselApr 2013
The Horologicon - Mark Forsyth - Icon Books, 2012
* * * *
Okay, so reading this book cover to cover rather than dipping into it as suggested in the introduction was probably a mistake. And to be fair, it’s not the author's fault that I can no longer readily recall the majority of what I read. But it does make this book a bit frustrating. I love using obscure but appropriate words, and this book is full of them, handily arranged by the time of day at which they are most likely to be useful. But I read it two months ago and I can barely remember a single one of them. Arghh!
Right, I've got it front of me now, so we can continue. The words come from a variety of specialised dictionaries covering regional dialects and occupational slang ("romancing the customer" is a supermarket term for giving someone a store card or points towards a future purchase). Some are outright useful, like grinnow, a Shropshire dialect word for a stain that won't come out in the wash, or quobbled, the wrinkled state that your fingers attain when you immerse them too long in water. Others are just pleasant to say, like zwodder, a "drowsy, foolish frame of mind", or gongoozler, an idler who stares at anything out of the ordinary, or the magnificent wamblecropt. "Wamble" means boiling or roiling, so "wamblecropt" is like having a queasy stomach, only worse.
Needless to say there are numerous words that can be worked into ordinary conversation when you want to insult someone without them knowing. My particular favourite is the Drogulus, a mythical creature invented by the philosopher A.J. Ayer that has no discernible effect on anything but which nonetheless exists. I've met a few managers like that.
There is rather a lot on drinking and on romance which didn’t interest me quite as much. Though I'll admit that ogo-pogoing, from a 1920s music hall song, is better than the more common "on the pull". I was also glad to be reminded of the delightful word callipygian to describe a beautiful bottom. Not a word, alas, that one gets to use much in real life (well, I don't anyway).
If anything, the main problem with this book is that there is a surfeit of riches. You are bombarded with so many new words that they all merge into each other. More details on fewer words might have worked a bit better. The book of hours organisation, with its assumption that your evenings consist of going to the drunkery (pub) and trying to get franfeluched (laid), also comes across as a bit contrived in places. Nonetheless, anyone with an interest in words will find much to enjoy here. Though perhaps taken in small doses, to avoid becoming etymologically wamblecropt.
The Horologicon - Mark Forsyth - Icon Books, 2012
* * * *
Okay, so reading this book cover to cover rather than dipping into it as suggested in the introduction was probably a mistake. And to be fair, it’s not the author's fault that I can no longer readily recall the majority of what I read. But it does make this book a bit frustrating. I love using obscure but appropriate words, and this book is full of them, handily arranged by the time of day at which they are most likely to be useful. But I read it two months ago and I can barely remember a single one of them. Arghh!
Right, I've got it front of me now, so we can continue. The words come from a variety of specialised dictionaries covering regional dialects and occupational slang ("romancing the customer" is a supermarket term for giving someone a store card or points towards a future purchase). Some are outright useful, like grinnow, a Shropshire dialect word for a stain that won't come out in the wash, or quobbled, the wrinkled state that your fingers attain when you immerse them too long in water. Others are just pleasant to say, like zwodder, a "drowsy, foolish frame of mind", or gongoozler, an idler who stares at anything out of the ordinary, or the magnificent wamblecropt. "Wamble" means boiling or roiling, so "wamblecropt" is like having a queasy stomach, only worse.
Needless to say there are numerous words that can be worked into ordinary conversation when you want to insult someone without them knowing. My particular favourite is the Drogulus, a mythical creature invented by the philosopher A.J. Ayer that has no discernible effect on anything but which nonetheless exists. I've met a few managers like that.
There is rather a lot on drinking and on romance which didn’t interest me quite as much. Though I'll admit that ogo-pogoing, from a 1920s music hall song, is better than the more common "on the pull". I was also glad to be reminded of the delightful word callipygian to describe a beautiful bottom. Not a word, alas, that one gets to use much in real life (well, I don't anyway).
If anything, the main problem with this book is that there is a surfeit of riches. You are bombarded with so many new words that they all merge into each other. More details on fewer words might have worked a bit better. The book of hours organisation, with its assumption that your evenings consist of going to the drunkery (pub) and trying to get franfeluched (laid), also comes across as a bit contrived in places. Nonetheless, anyone with an interest in words will find much to enjoy here. Though perhaps taken in small doses, to avoid becoming etymologically wamblecropt.