Forgotten English: A Merry Guide to Antiquated Words, Packed with History, Fun Facts, Literary Excerpts, and Charming Drawings

by Jeffrey Kacirk

Have you ever sent a message via scandaroon, needed a nimgimmer, or fallen victim to bowelhive? Never heard of these terms? That's because they are a thing of the past. These words are alive and well, however, in Forgotten English, a charming collection of hundreds of archaic words, their definitions, and old-fashioned line drawings. For readers of Bill Bryson, Henry Beard, and Richard Lederer, Forgotten English is an eye-opening trip down a delightful etymological path. Readers learn that an ale connor sat in a puddle of ale to judge its quality, that a beemaster informed bees of any important household events, and that our ancestors had a saint for hangover sufferers, St. Bibiana, a fact pertinent to the word bibulous. Each selection is accompanied by literary excerpts demonstrating the word's usage, from sources such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Chaucer, and Benjamin Franklin. Entertaining as well as educational, Forgotten English is a fascinating addition to word lovers' books.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Reference, History, Writing, Linguistics, Historical

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 3, 1997

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forgotten English is a collection of antiquated words and their histories.

When I saw this book, I was picturing a dictionary full of words that have fallen out of favor. While it is that, it's also a lot more.

Forgotten 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. 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. Don't get me started on Scandaroon, Nimgimmer, or Kingsevil....

Some of the entries ran a little long. I would have preferred more definitions and less of the fluffier bits. 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.

This book was not precisely what I imagined but I enjoyed it just the same. 3 out of 5 stars.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was in college, I took a linguistics and etymology course that was one of my favorites. This book made me think of that course. 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.

Petty-fogger - a term that is exactly what it sounds like--someone who promotes quarrels or encourages going to law for trivial reasons. Can’t imagine why we lost that word, but I think today we just call them ambulance-chasers.

Usufruct - Which was just to indicate the right of anyone to windfall fruit. The shepherds would take their crooks and pull fruit down, which is the origin of the current meaning of the word crook. How neat is that?

Scaramouch - a fencing term that evolved into a modern football “skirmish”.

Uzzle Pye - This one blew me away. Know the nursery rhyme “Sing a song of sixpence”? When the pie was open the birds began to sing. Did you ever take that literally? I didn’t. 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.

Scuttled-Butt - A spot on the ship where sailors gathered to gossip. So, if you heard it at the scuttled butt, you passed it on. And, of course, it became scuttlebutt, which we still like to get in on from time to time.

And one that I did recognize right away:

Resurrectionist - A grave robber who exhumed bodies and sold them to scientist. The practice and the need for the term have gone, thankfully, but we still have the literary figure of Jerry Cruncher in A Tale of Two Cities to give an accurate depiction of what was entailed in the trade.

Needless to say, this is just a minor sampling of the words and stories included in this interesting book. I love words, and I read a number of classics where I am likely to run into some of these archaic terms, so the book serves a more immediate purpose. If you are like me, and you think words are worth studying in and of themselves, dig in, this one is fun.

“He hath been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scrapes” - William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sorry for ranting a bit here, but it honestly drives me academically and intellectually rather batty and also totally renders me angrily furious regarding how very much too often (and yes, Jeffrey Kacirk also does this with and in his 1997 Forgotten English) the English language is somehow considered and described as being a form of German and German as a form of English, when no indeed and linguistically speaking, English and German are both Western Germanic languages and that as such they are of course closely related and linked linguistically, but are bien sûr not the same and thus also not just interchangeable.

However, and be that as it may, aside from the above mentioned annoying but also not all that surprising linguistic mistake in the chronology section of Forgotten English totally frustrating me, yes, I have certainly found Jeffrey Kacirk's lists of archaic, of no longer in use or only very rarely in use English words entertaining, diverting and educational. But indeed and personally speaking, I most definitely would certainly find a basic A to Z format for Forgotten English much more user and research friendly than Kacirk using thematic chapter divisions, as an A to Z format in Forgotten English totally means to me and for me less flipping through different and varying sections for a given word, since a reader, as a researcher would naturally just have to look at the spelling and check the first letter.


And furthermore, and for me even more importantly, I also do wish that there were more bona fide and actual linguistic history and etymology contents mentioned and offered in Forgotten English. Because while the cultural, historical and societal information on the featured archaic and often no longer in current use English words Jeffrey Kacirk presents in Forgotten English certainly is interesting and generally also spot-on and accurate, as a linguist, I am with rather a bit of frustration also wanting and hoping for considerably more language based information, and that indeed, the rather obvious textual lack thereof, this is not only massively annoying, well, it also makes Forgotten English (in my humble opinion) less a tome regarding language and more a book about society, civilisation, culture, and not to mention that with regard to how Jeffrey Kacirk acknowledges his sources in Forgotten English and although I really do very much appreciate the inclusion of a detailed bibliography, yes and certainly, I really do wish that instead of simply incorporating these (the sources) into the text proper of Forgotten English, Kacirk would instead use either footnotes or endnotes (and simply because I personally and academically do usually, generally consider footnotes or endnotes as being a bit more research friendly and oriented than having everything, including one's sources found and located in the main textual body of a given non fiction piece of writing).

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first, I took umbrage with the title of this little book. Forgotten English suggests we'd be treated to a dictionary of sorts, full of archaic English words, long since fallen out of favour. And yet, early on, we're told about buggery and succubi and gammon and ambergris and hobnails. Sure, I probably wouldn't use all of those words in polite conversation, and definitely not in the same sentence, but forgotten? Not really.

I chalked this up to the book's American origins and figured it should be called Old Words from British English that are Mostly Forgotten in the UK and, Like, Definitely not Heard in the US. With that I was ready to polish off the book and get on with my new-found career of giving new, accurate titles to old works of literature.

But then I realised that I'd totally missed the point. Forgotten English isn't a dictionary of obsolete words, it's a ramble through the hills of historical esoterica that the UK has to offer. It uses archaic English words as jumping off points for fascinating little insights into the peculiar customs, idioms, and idiosyncrasies that these islands once harboured. Like the entry for bee-master, which, we learn, was the name given to bee-keepers on estates. That's a cute name but not particularly interesting. (Although I have to admit that being “master of the bees” sounds way cooler than just being their keeper.) But from there we learn that the bee-master's duties weren't just tending to the hives, he also had to inform the bees of any deaths in the family, and help them go into mourning when such a death happened. Back in the day, when someone on the estate died even the bee hives wore black. Such fascinating trivia abound through the book, making it much more fun than your average dictionary.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took my time reading this book and I'm glad I did, because it's a book that should be savoured in small doses. Forgotten English is a book about words that have fallen out of use. Some I actually knew/had heard about, some are the predecessors of modern words, and some flabbergasted me. The words are organised by theme, such as drink, occupation, love, etc., and each word contains the meaning and a brief history of it.

Most of the time, this history includes examples of how the word was used, with lots of quotations from old texts.

I found this to be very illuminating and enjoyable. Sure, we probably won't be using these words in our daily lives, but the history of English is a fascinating topic that I don't normally think about. It was really fun to learn something new about something that I thought I already knew.

Words that are explained include:

Mocteroof: which is used for the craft of "frubbishing" or making damaged fruits and vegetables look good (and the the entry explains how)

Mob fair: which is a job hunting fair for domestic and agricultural workers

Purl-men: 18th and 19th century beer-sellers who sold their beer on the Thames and other rivers

Lettice-cap: a medical appliance that resembles a hair net (although lettuce was probably not used)

Gorgayse: a Middle English word which means "elegant, fashionable" and is the predecessor of the word gorgeous

And much more!

You really don't have to be a wordsmith to enjoy this book. As long as you like the English language and/or history, you'll enjoy reading this.

This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Similar to the Superior Person’s Book of Words insofar as it attempts to recover and popularize cool words. Contains etymologies, quotations of usage, and other bits regarding ancient terms long fallen into desuetude.

Recommended for astrologamages, rattoners, and fribblers.

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I especially enjoyed the many examples of word usage, and the extensive bibliography.

[Robu-sensei · Rating 2 out of 5]

The selection of "forgotten" English words featured were nicely amusing and strange, as were many of the superstitions and puzzling rituals behind them, but at least a quarter of them aren't really forgotten—at least to anyone who is reasonably well read. Unfortunately, quite a few of the quotes from long-dead authors had so little to do with the subject that they brought to mind a non-forgotten, non-English term, "non sequitur". Also, the illustrations looked like they might be topical and entertaining, but since most were smaller than a generic US postage stamp I guess I'll never know for sure until I get my electron microscope back from the shop.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting details and anecdotes, but many of the words are hardly "forgotten" and, with some of the more outlandish entries, there's very little evidence given to suggest the terms were in common usage.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating, if fanciful, musing on words and their lost meanings. Not in the least academic - I suspect some of the author's assertions would not withstand scholarly scrutiny - but entertaining on every page - a good bathroom book.

[Curt Bobbitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kacirk organizes the antiquated words in fifteen numbered, titled chapters such as “The Animal Kingdom,” “Fun and Games,” “The Body,” and “The Final Curtain.” Within each chapter he presents the words and definitions topically rather than alphabetically. The alphabetical Index includes all the words and all the writers quoted.
In his Introduction, Kacirk says he selected the entries “on the basis of their colorful historical associations, etymologies, unique sound, variety, unusual meanings, or changes in their meanings over time.”
Four examples illustrate Kacirk’s lighthearted style:

“The long-lost word fribbler and its entourage, including the unlikely nouns fribbleism and fribbledom (the behavior of a fribbler), was survived only by frivolous, which influenced the development of eighteenth-century noun frivolity, and the nonsense word fribble-frabble.”
“When a boy was said to be a ‘spitting image’ of his father, it probably never meant that he expectorated in a similar manner. Harold Wentworth suggested that spit was an American corruption of spirit and that the phrase may have originated as ‘spirit and image.’”
“BALDERDASH” * In its original meaning, dating from the sixteenth century, an odd or inappropriate combination of two or more liquors, such as ale and wine or, as found in Ben Jonson’s play New Inn, ‘Beer [and] butter-milk, mingled together….It is against my free-hold…to drink such balderdash.’”
“The clinking together of cups, and later glasses, known as toasting, was originally an attempt to mimic the sound of church bells, which were rung to ward off the devil.”

[Sarah Clement · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book over a long period of time, and I think this is how it's best consumed. As a coffee table/bedside table type book where you pick it up, read a few entries, and put it back down. This isn't any sort of comprehensive deep dive, but you will learn some fun facts and anecdotes. I suspect it's not entirely linguistically or historically accurate, either, but I still really enjoyed it. I liked the categorisation of the words rather than a dictionary-style or alphabetically ordered book, especially since it's really just a series of interesting vignettes about each word. I did often want to know more, but this is more a "first it makes you laugh, then it makes you think" sort of book.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightfully whimsical look at the obscure origins of even more obscure words. Some of the individual sections were a tad unfocused for my taste, leaping to related words or concepts when I felt the original word hadn't been adequately explored, but overall, an utterly charming read. If you're a word nerd, this is very much written for you!

[Mary Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read a considerable amount on the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, this book helped in interpreting some of the vocabulary used by the authors. Easy quick read.

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating!

[Abby Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

So interesting! I love words.

[Sam Berner · Rating 1 out of 5]

A totally useless book. Neither a proper academic etymology, nor a useful layman's guide to usage. Feeling sorry for the trees that fell.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

FLITCH

A side of various game animals, from as long ago as the early eighth century, and recently only applied to bacon. The phrase, "to bring home the bacon," developed during the fourteenth century in the Essex county town of Dunmow, England. Dunmow records show that a noblewoman attempted to encourage marital contentment by offering a gammon, or side of bacon called a dunmow flitch, to any couple who would swear that for the past year they had not had a household brawl or wished themselves unmarried. The claimant couple was sometimes verbally examined before a panel of six bachelors and six unmarried maidens. This flitch became a symbol of domestic happiness, but, by 1772, only eight of these prizes were awarded - and these to men only. An abridged version of the oath reads:

You shall swear by custom of confession,
If ever you made a nuptual transgression,
Or, since the parish-clerk and the Amen,
You wish'd yourselves unmarried again,
But continued true in thought and desire
As when you joined hands in the quire.
A whole gammon of bacon you shall receive,
And bear it hence with love and good leave;
For this is our custom at Dunmow well known,
Though the pleasure be ours, the bacon's your own.

PAGE 117, FORGOTTEN ENGLISH

Bacon. Gotta love it.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forgotten English: A Merry Guide to Antiquated Words, Packed with History, Fun Facts, Literary Excerpts, and Charming Drawings by Jeffrey Kacirk (Quill William Morrow 1997) (422.0) is an interesting read for those curious about the origins of common speech in the English language. A number of these words are still in use today if one knows where to look (e.g., ambergris, scaramouch, pismire, hobnail, press-gang). My rating: 6/10, finished 11/21/11.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining. Kacirk explains how some of these "forgotten" words are actually still used to today in different permutations. It was a nice twist to be educated about language and laughing out loud at the same time. I recommend this book to anyone who loves the history of english.

[Terrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as engaging as I had hoped for, yet interesting enough to finish. What did I learn from this? Well, now I know what "lant" is. Look it up.

[Leila Bowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good - so funny - a great database for potential characters, titles, plots...

[Amos]

Entertaining

[Debi Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great resource book for some very interesting words. Lots of fun facts and history.

[Regine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining.

[Cilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book! This offering was perfectly delightful. Thank you.