The Professor and the Madman

by Simon Winchester

So, fantastic linguistic creations like abequitate, bulbulcitate, and sullevation appeared in these books alongside archgrammacian and contiguate, with lengthy definitions; there were words like necessitude, commotrix, and parentate—all of which are now listed, if listed at all, as “obsolete” or “rare” or both. Pretentious and flowery inventions adorned the language—perhaps not all that surprising, considering the flowery fashion of the times, with its perukes and powdered periwigs; its rebatos and doublets; its ruffs, ribbons; and scarlet velvet Rhinegraves. So words like adminiculation, cautionate, deruncinate, and attemptate are placed in the vocabulary too, each duly cataloged in the tiny leather books of the day; yet they were words meant only for the loftiest ears, and were unlikely to impress Cawdrey’s intended audience of ladies, gentlewomen, and “unskillful persons.”