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A Modest Bouquet of Rare Verbal Blossoms Or Obscure Words Worth Revival   1. Gadzookery is what I’m doing here: gadzookery is the deliberate use of archaic, obsolete words. The word stems from a seventeenth-century mild swear word: Gadzooks! Characters in bad historical novels utter it constantly. Gadzooks is a “minced oath.” When you have hit a finger with the misplaced blow of a hammer, instead of yelling “God damn it!” you instead murmur tepidly “Gol darn it!” you mince your swear word. Minced oaths are used to spare the speaker from uttering sacrilege, to prune blasphemous superfluities of angry speech with the sickle of good taste. In one theory about the origin of gadzooks, it is a blending or slurring of the much nastier “God’s hooks!” a curse phrase that made specific reference to the nails used to crucify Jesus. Yikes! The oath is often met while reading this sort of “historical” romance: Lord Studley seized her at a casement window of stately Distracted Manor. Lady Minklet sensed his hot, coarse breath polluting her milk-white shoulders as he ripped the fine silk straps from her heaving bodice. After the scarlet rush of lust’s blush had incarnadined her maidenly cheeks, Lady Minklet drew back and exclaimed, “Gadzooks, sir! What are these nocturnal impertinences! Do you take me for a common milkmaid, sir?” “No, milady,” cooed Lord Studley, whose tact and charm were bruited about on every fashionable lip in Shropshire , “I take you, even done up in Parisian tuile and lace, for what you have always been, a whore.”   2. Nefandous are the environmental crimes of the tar-sands oil extraction companies. Snorted one Canadian politician, a high-placed member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government, “Who gives a fuck about some dead ducks?” That’s who is running Canada these days. Many a time have I written about the skimpy number of insult words in English. In this age of shabby corporate behaviour led by swinish executives of no discernible morality and no ability to do anything except gob and swill at the hog trough of glut, it may be opportune to revive older English words of disdain, even if their use gets us struck off the list of beamish anus-lickers invited to the company Christmas party. Let us be proud instead to be proscribed upon the more honorable list of do-badders who label evil. One such lambent gem plucked from the casket of obscurity is the adjective nefandous which means ‘characterized by unspeakable wickedness.’ Nefandus was used in classical Latin, being a negative gerundive adjective from Latin ne- ‘not’ + Latin adjective fandus ‘to be spoken’ > Latin verb fari ‘to speak.’ Fari is the verbal root of many Latin words borrowed into English. An infant was first ‘one who is not yet speaking,’ Latin in- ‘not’ + Latin fans, fantis ‘speaking,’ the present participle of fari. Other common words from fari include affable, ineffable, confess, fable ‘a story spoken,’ fame and fate. In the fourth book of the great epic poem of ancient Rome, Virgil’s Aeneid, there is a phrase that once had modest currency in English but is now rare: mollissima fandi tempora ‘the most favorable times to speak out.’ 3. Immane is the rape of our orbic womb, this blessed, roundish earth, the water death and habitat horrors of Alberta’s tar sands. Too bad immane is so rare. It has a sonorant and lugubrious sound of damage and, spoken aloud in a speech, immane’s pronunciation can be drawn-out as long as the devil’s tail. The Latin root is immanis ‘monstrous, gigantic, uncivilized’ from Latin im- (not) + early Latin manis, manus ‘good, virtuous.’ A clue to the ancient Romans love of early hours is the cognate Latin adverb mane ‘in the morning,’ meaning literally ‘in the good part [of the day].’   4. Hoon. The crotch-picking, ape-browed hoon in the soccer stadium seat stabbed his neighbour because he didn’t like the colour of the guy’s t-shirt. The hoon used a prize pocket-knife he had been awarded in Cub Scouts for Woodsmanship Derring Do. Hoon is a most apt monosyllable to describe an uncouth ruffian, a felonious thug, a letterless hooligan. The word began in Australia. Down under, hoon often names a lout who drives dangerously in an automobile or motorboat or on jet skis. sample hoon recreational activity Australian newspapers and even government documents speak of anti-hoon legislation necessary to curb the antics of the miscreant baboons. Possible Hoonish Origins No one knows hoon’s origin. If you do, email me and I’ll add it here. Could hoon have been borrowed into Aussie English from an oriental language? It is a common given name and surname in the orient. And it is a word in Hindi. Main Hoon Na, Hindi: मैं हूँ ना , translation: I am here for you. Hoon is a Dutch surname too, de Hoon derives from a nickname in Middle Dutch: the definite article de + hoon, hone ‘dangerous, ‘deceitful’ or ‘treacherous.’ In what I find to be a far too literary origin, linguist Sid Baker in his book The Australian Language suggests hoon was a contraction of Houyhnhnm, a race of intelligent horses in Jonathon Swift’s satirical novel, Gulliver’s Travels. This offering is somewhat unlikely because, in the novel, the intelligent horses receive Swift's praise and are honored far above fallible humans, so there would be no logic to dubbing a sluggish horde of subhuman lummoxes with so noble a moniker.   Hoon women enjoy a stylish rest break. 5. Upwake, You Slugs! You multitudinous, pullulating maggots! Yes, the modern order is ‘wake up.’ But several hundred years ago in English you could greet the dawn and upwake. I think the preposition as prefix makes for a livelier, sturdier-sounding verb, especially in its imperative forms. When seeking to rouse to action the somnolent sheep who abound in modern western society, upwake ought to be revived. So too should all these forgotten vocables, which await only the writer or speaker brave enough to re-employ them in everyday English.   copyright © 2012 William Gordon Casselman Male hoon displays tasteful tattoo   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Any comments, emendations, additional word lore or book orders? Please email it to me at wordguy@shaw.ca

 

 

 

Reviews of my New Book

Click bookcover for preview

Jenni French of San Fancisco, California writes on her blog "My Corner of the Universe" for March 19, 2011:

Casselman, Bill. Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A World Lover's Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2010.

"I admit it: I'm a word nerd. I love words: weird words, long words, obscure words, funny words.  This book is right up my alley.  With chapters like "Nautical Words," "Creepy Words," and "Edible Words," I have enjoyed every page of this book. 

And the author has quite a way with words, so I have found myself rereading many sentences in this book and slowing my progress through it. 

My current favorite sentence is found in a discussion of dog hybrid breed names: "What a revolting concatenation of cutesiness and smarmy nomenclatorial treacle parading under the name of canine hybrid breed names" (19).

I'm sure I'll have another favorite sentence in a day or two. 

This book is just that good and just that entertaining."

 

Author Bill Casselman replies: "Thanks, Jenni!"

Just a reminder that this book contains my ALL-NEW word esssays, none of which are available anywhere else in print or online.

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A Great New Review of My Latest Book!

 

October 26, 2011

Welcome to the Enchanted Forest

By WB Johnston

This review is about Bill Casselman’s latest e-book about words: Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A Word Lover’s Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems (Kindle Edition)

 

“Wade Davis, lately of National Geographic, once described each living language as “an old-growth forest of the human spirit.” Once you decide to enter the kleptomaniacal woods of our mother tongue, what you need is more than a tour guide. This is no Disney-fied ‘keep-your-hands-inside-the-car-at all-times’, point A to point B, clear-cutting mining of language. You, here, are in the hands of Sir William of Cassel, a genuine shaman modestly posing as a simple lover of words.

In the best of the spiritual tradition, Bill is the shape-shifter who constantly leads you to all the places you need to find in your soul. Every page is a new country, an invitation to an excursion into the wonderland of rich connections with the myriad of sources of what so often we unthinkingly wield as a prosaic tool.

Pay absolutely no attention to anyone who tells you that this book is anything but pure gold. It’s simply not true, sadly, that all the world loves a lover. Particularly someone whose love is so boundless.

But Sir William is fearless. You don’t earn your keep as a medicine man if you have a thin skin. While I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could walk away from this book unmoved by its wit, its wisdom and the beautiful transparency by which the author celebrates the glorious romp of our almost unlimited linguistic exuberance, I have to sadly conclude that once in a while, you do meet someone who can’t see the forest for the trees, eh?

Read this book. Leave it on the sofa instead of the $%#!*$% TV remote. Maybe someone you care about will pick it up, even just for a moment, and fall in love with their heritage?

Leave it on your desk at work and trust that someone will riffle through it when you are out at lunch. Shamans are magicians of the highest order. The work of their hands and hearts is game-changing. Or, hey, put it on your Kindle and just feel comforted that you can wander back out into the forest with Bill even in the middle of a boring lecture.

Enjoy.”

 

Casselman replies: Thank you so much, Dr. J., for the kudos.

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Cindy Lapeña on her blog "Creativity Unlimited" of July 19 ,2011, writes: Posted by mimrlith in 365 Things to Look Forward to.
Tags: 365 things to look forward to, books, reading
trackback

19. Starting a book

To a certified bibliophile like me, a.k.a. bookworm, one of the most exciting things to look forward to is to start reading a new book. In fact, sometimes the prospect of starting to read a new book is so exciting that I have to hurry to finish the book I am currently reading, just so I can start a new one.

If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a book, especially if it promises to be a good one. Of course there are certain books I just won’t touch or be seen with, but at the risk of being hung by my thumbs by fans of such literature, I will not mention any genres in particular. . .

Seeing a book with a title that totally captivates me, like Where a Dobdob meets a Dikdik (yes, that is a book title!) has me so worked up, I just can’t wait to dive in. I imagine all sorts of deliciously fancifully outrageous words with a title like that. Is it obvious? I just love books on words. You won’t believe how many dictionaries I own. Or books on lexical oddities and other lexical explorations. Yes, I am a logophile of sorts. I love the new words I pick up from new books. I relish finding out the meanings of all manner of words and phrases and expressions. What could be more fun?"

(Replies author Bill Casselman: Please scroll to bottom of page or click here to link to a free seven-page preview of my new book, Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik.

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Sample My Newest Book. Click Below.

Jan. 3, 2011

“Mr Casselman,
I wanted to write to thank you for your thoroughly enjoyable [new] book. By background, I am a technologist practicing the somewhat arcane crafts of Information Security.”  

David Gamey, Canada

 

Testimonial Email

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Dear Mr. Casselman,
A search for the origins of an improbable-looking word, paraprosdokian, led me to the first piece of your prose I have had the pleasure of reading, "The Bogus Word Paraprosdokian & Lazy Con Artists of Academe." I have just placed an order for Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik, Canadian Words & Sayings, and As The Canoe Tips, and will add more of your titles as I finish these.

I have just retired from a 40-plus year career in book publishing, the last thirty years spent as director/editor of a number of university presses, attempting to sort the genuine writers from the "Lazy Con Artists of Academe." Sad to say, the latter have so over-bred the former that I could no longer see the rare gem in the avalanches of offal that daily swamped my office and desk. I visited your website and spent far too long there; it was a pleasure to meet a real writer through his work.. . . I revisited the paraprosdokian page, and have finally quit laughing again at “Casselman's Conclusion.” You were not unkind to the "profligate prof-lets." During my years as an acquisitions editor, in rejection letters I often quoted Prof. Moses Hadas, classicist at Columbia University, who wrote a young scholar in response to having been sent the prof-let's first book, "Thank you for sending me your book. I will waste no time reading it."

I know I will enjoy your books. Keep up the good work.

Thank you,

Luther Wilson
Director (Retired)
University of New Mexico Press, among others

 

 

 

Nov. 15, 2010: On Twitter, Doug O'Neill, a happy buyer of my new Dobdob book, writes, "Even funnier flipping through it a second time around."

Thanks, Doug!

 

 

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Buy my new book online

at amazon.com

or, shopping in canada, click amazon.ca

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Hundreds of links to more word essays; click below.

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Bibliography of my works published in book form