| A Word to the Wise
Verbum satis sapientibus: A word to the wise is sufficient
by Gerald Waite
Many of us know of and appreciate the annual list of “banned words” released each New Year by Lake Superior State University.
I recently learned of another list, published by Wayne State for several years now: Words to be Resurrected (www.wordwarriors.wayne.edu).
I wrote a column with that very idea way back in January 2006, and I’m inspired to have at it once again. We might wonder whether we don’t already have plenty of words in use now, so why not let these antiques gather dust?
I’m not so sure. Some research shows that, while English has twice the vocabulary of any other language, we use a paltry number of words on a daily basis.
Think of these old words as a good wine. You can fill your stomach by eating burgers and fries out of a plastic container, but with beef bourguignon, you want a good merlot, not a diet soda.
As an appetizer, here are a few tasty bites from that old list I put together six years ago:
Ken, an old Scots verb meaning to know, also used as a noun for awareness. Keats writes of a new planet swimming into an astronomer’s ken.
Anon, meaning soon or forthwith or presently: Spring may surface anon (but don’t hold your breath).
Forenoon or morning. For example, she gets little work done in the forenoon until after coffee and time with a book.
Palaver, meaning to talk, and used as a noun, too. Hopalong Cassidy and pals often would palaver, I recall from those old matinees.
This year’s Wayne State collection of ten or so includes such beauties as antediluvian, erstwhile and truckle. The first means literally “before the flood” and thus ancient and generally outmoded.
Erstwhile is a synonym for former, as in “our erstwhile friends in childhood,” while truckle means to submit slavishly or obsequiously.
Wayne’s site includes another list, this a longer collection of other words submitted, if not chosen, that you might appreciate.
Not surprisingly, a fair number of words in this long list have popped up in this column over the past nine years, including meretricious (tawdry or insincere), eleemosynary (charitable), peckish (hungry), quisling (a traitor), mellifluous (flowing sweetly) and lugubrious (mournful).
And here are a few more from Wayne’s collection that should be rescued from the rich vault of words in the English language:
Susurrus (SU-sir-iss), a noun referring to a soft sound like whispering or muttering, such as you might hear in the theater before the curtain rises or the conductor enters.
It’s onomatopoeic: it sounds like what it means. This is a new one to me and it may not be in your desktop dictionary, but it’s been around for at least a few hundred years. It’s from the Latin sussurare, to whisper. Longfellow writes in Evangeline of “the chant of their vespers, mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of the branches.”
Natter (as in chatter) is a verb suggesting a less pleasant sound—to scold, grumble, babble or nag. The participial form, nattering, probably is more recognizable.
George Eliot tells of “Lisbeth, whose motherly feeling now got the better of her ‘nattering’ habit.” And if you’re even half my age, you might recall Vice President Spiro Agnew railing at “those nattering nabobs of negativism.”
As for nabob, it was the title of a high official or noble in India. Borrowed by the British, it became associated with a self-important, pompous figure.
Jejune (Zhe-ZHOON) has come to mean puerile or childish, by a rather roundabout route. Its common sense in Shakespeare’s time was hungry or fasting, and thus deficient in nourishment or empty. Thence it became used also to describe insipid minds or speech or writing. Today, it particularly bespeaks silly or childish persons or talk.
That was so much fun we may have to try it again. Try to use a few of these anon. Some will surely be on the next quiz.
Word for the month
Poltroon (pol-TROON), a spiritless coward, a worthless wretch, a real low-life. Or, as my daughter-in-law would say, a “dirtball.” This final offer from the Wayne State master list is an old word in English, picked up at least by the 1500s from Italian.
It’s well illustrated by eighteenth century novelist Tobias Smollett, who writes that a character was “as arrant a poltroon as ever was drummed out of a regiment.”
–– Gerald Waite
Editor’s Note: Questions or comments are welcome. Write MM or direct messages to marquettemonthly@marquettemonthly.com
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