The English Language is Ridiculously Awesome, Even Though We Stole Most of It

The first month of 2013 is over, which means I've gone through the first month of my new calendar.  I know that sounded really stupid and redundant, but if you knew how nifty (yes, nifty) this calendar was, you would be as excited as I am.  I haven't come across a word that describes just how nifty it is yet, but the year is young and I have roughly 288 more words to go.  So now, for your enjoyment, have a snack of forgotten English.


shame-faced - The quality of being too fearful of losing the esteem of others or doing something that may give them a bad opinion. Shamefaced, easily blushing, easily put out of countenance.

snow-bones - Remnants of snow after a thaw.

court-holy-water - Insincere complimentary language.

lying by the wall - The interval between death and burial is sometimes spoken of in Suffolk as "lying by the wall."  There was a saying, "If one lie by the wall on Sunday, there will be another corpse in the same parish before the week is out."

trollibags - The intestines. Norfolk. [Still known in Northern England.]

bowssening - Casting mad people into the sea, or immersing them in water until they are well-nigh drowned, have been recommended by high medical authorities as a means of cure.

whizz-bang - A mixture of morphine and cocaine injected subcutaneously.

behopes - Hope, expectation. Ireland, Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire.

fauxonry - Fraud, in the legal sense; falsification of deeds or measures, coining false money, etc.  Adaptation of Old French faussoner, to deceive, faus, false.

vomitory - A door of a large building; from Latin vomitorious.


upputting - Lodging, entertainment for man or beast. Scotland, Northhamptonshire.

real cheese - The Anglo-Indian, by his rough-and-ready adaptation of native words and expressions...is responsible for the currency today of many popular sayings.  Amongst others, such a source has been suggested for the common expression the real cheese, meaning the real thing, quite in fashion, or up to date.  There is a Persian and Hindustani word chiz, meaning thing, and a young Anglo-Indian would frequently say, "My new horse is the real chiz," easily corruptible into the English cheese.
                   - Duck's meat; hardened mucous in the corners of the eyes after sleeping.

boanthropy - A form of madness in which a man believes himself to be an ox.

strowlers - Vagabonds, itinerants, men of no settled abode, of a precarious life; wanderers of fortune, such as gypsies, beggars, peddlers, hawkers, mountebanks, fiddlers, country-players, rope-dancers, jugglers, tumblers, showers of tricks, and raree-show-men.

heterarchy - The government of an alien; from Greek heteros, foreign, and arche, rule.

milkscore - Account of milk owed for, scored on a board.

trumpet marine - An instrument with a bellows, resembling a lute, having a long neck with a string, which being struck with a hairbow sounds like a trumpet.

conbobberation - Conbobberation, helliferocious, mollagausauger, to puckerstopple, and peedoddles were actually in use, and seem unbelievably outlandish today only because of their unfamiliarity...The "tall talk" of the backwoods. moving ever westward with the frontier, left unmistakable traces in the writings of Mark Twain, John Hay, and a good many smaller fry.


Don't you want this calendar now? I thought so.

Forgotten English

   So, I got this really awesome calendar over Christmas break.  I was so excited when I saw the name.  Forgotten English?  Oh, ho, ho, there was no turning back after that.  I had to buy it.  I'm only eleven days in, but I can tell this is going to be a good year, even if it's only because I get to read about a crazy new word every day.
   What kind of words have English speaking people forgotten about?  And how does a person just totally forget that a word exists?  I know that's what you're thinking, but I have no answers.  Sorry.  But I can go on in length about some interesting words I've come across so far.  Is that okay? Oh, well, you'll get over it.

Hopshackles
What these were, we can only guess...They appear to be some kind of shackles imposed upon the loser of the race by the judges.  Roger Ascham [wrote in] The Scholemaster (1570): "Some runners...deserve but the hopshackles."
                                                             -Robert Nares's Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859

The brand new year started of with this one.  I couldn't get over their definition.  Heh, hopshackles...


Ploughed Rainbow
A field ploughed in curves ("bows") to suit a curving outline, is said to be ploughed rainbow.  Hence, some fields have the name Rainbow Field.
                                                                       -Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923

This one is one of my favorites so far, because the same day that it was on the calendar, I also found a green star sticker on the floor of my room, the same stickers we use in the Rainbows class at church.  I miss those little kids.


Water-wolf
In drinking out of a stream, a man is said to "swallow a water-wolf" which, it is said, lives and grows in his stomach.

                              -Sidney Addy's Glossary of...Sheffield [Yorkshire], 1888

While to most people this may seem on the outrageous and ridiculous side, I find this one hilariously awesome!  Not to mention, this totally sounds like something that would pop up in one of the circle stories my friend Caroline and I write.  I have a feeling there will most definitely be a water-wolf in the current one.

Stay out of those streams and don't drink any water-wolves, people!