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Have you ever sent a message via scandaroon (a carrier pigeon), needed the services of a nimgimmer (a surgeon), or contracted kingsevil (neck swelling cured only by the touch of a king or queen)? If you’ve never heard of these terms that is because they are largely forgotten. But words like these are alive and well in Forgotten English, a collection of hundreds of archaic expressions and their definitions, accompanied by old-fashioned line drawings. The word histories include pithy citations from a wide array of older sources, from Shakespeare’s plays, the Bible, and American and European writers of history, prose, poetry, law, medicine, and etiquette. Even cookery is represented, with recipes and tips for making the best dilligrout, horse-bread, and uzzle-pye. So have some glig (fun) with the English of our ancestors!
In paperback from William Morrow.
ISBN 0-6881-5018-7
The Word Museum features English expressions used since Shakespeare’s time which have, for a variety of reasons, faded or completely vanished. The often surprising, quirky, and thought-provoking definitions are drawn verbatim from their original sources offering the reader a firsthand relationship to the early lexicographers and wordsmiths who first cataloged these gems. The offerings include such delights as egg-wife-trott (an easy jog, such a speed as farmers’ wives use to carry their eggs to market), cow-handed (awkward), sandillions (numbers like the sand on the seashore), cragsman (a Scotsman who gathered seabirds’ eggs on hazardous cliffs), wonder-wench (a sweetheart from Yorkshire), and illiack passion (intestinal gas). Included is a complete bibliography, along with several dozen vintage line drawings.
In paperback from Simon and Schuster.
ISBN 0-684-85761-8
Gleaned from early dictionaries, dialect glossaries, studies of folklore, nautical lexicons, historical writings, letters, novels, and miscellaneous sources, Informal English offers a treasure trove of linguistic oddities that will entertain and shed light on America’s colloquial past. Among the gems are leather-ears (a person of slow comprehension), park the biscuit (to sit down), mouthprints (spoken words, especially when used as evidence), left-legged (clumsy in walking), bone-orchard (slang for a cemetery), horse drama (a form of drama in which trained horses are used), and scurryfunge (a hasty tidying of the house between the time you see a neighbor and the time she knocks).
In paperback from Simon and Schuster.
ISBN 0-7732-5493-7
Over the centuries, English words have strayed from their original meanings and acquired vastly different connotations. Consider the word tryst, now a romantic liaison, but which in Georgian and Victorian England referred to a “fair for cattle, horses, and sheep.” You’ll also discover that excrement described “hair, beard, and other things growing out of the body” in Shakespeare’s time, that a coffin was the raised crust of a pie, and that the word slogan denoted the war cry or gathering word of a Scottish border clan. Like The Word Museum, the focus here is on the changes in the English language, but unlike my other books, Altered English contains currently used words and phrases which have changed. After spending some time with this book you may never hear English in quite the same way.
In hardback from Pomegranate.
ISBN 0-7649-2019-7
Forgotten English knowledge cards
