Well, seems they actually made pies, baked the crusts, tethered live birds in them, put a crust on top and then released the birds in a celebration. Did you ever take that literally? I didn’t. Know the nursery rhyme “Sing a song of sixpence”? When the pie was open the birds began to sing. Scaramouch - a fencing term that evolved into a modern football “skirmish”. The shepherds would take their crooks and pull fruit down, which is the origin of the current meaning of the word crook.
Usufruct - Which was just to indicate the right of anyone to windfall fruit. Can’t imagine why we lost that word, but I think today we just call them ambulance-chasers. Petty-fogger - a term that is exactly what it sounds like-someone who promotes quarrels or encourages going to law for trivial reasons. It is a compendium of words once common and no longer used, where they came from, what they meant, and in some cases what they have morphed into over time. When I was in college, I took a linguistics and etymology course that was one of my favorites. This book was not precisely what I imagined but I enjoyed it just the same. The writing style was pretty good and I probably would have enjoyed this book more if I hadn't just read The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson. I would have preferred more definitions and less of the fluffier bits. Don't get me started on Scandaroon, Nimgimmer, or Kingsevil.
Did you know that a stirrup-cup, a mug of some alcoholic beverage handed to a horsed patron of a tavern as he leaves, is the origin of the phrase "one for the road?" That's just one of the words within. While it is that, it's also a lot more.įorgotten English contains a lot of words, some seldom used, some probably never uttered aloud in several centuries, and a lot of fun facts pertaining to them. When I saw this book, I was picturing a dictionary full of words that have fallen out of favor. Forgotten English is a collection of antiquated words and their histories.
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