Granted, not all in the world of musty tropes is fun, a word Kacirk uses often. Kacirk's book is a flip-through find, perfect for everyone from lay word nerds to top-dollar scholars.

Ah, but back in 1849, James Bartlett noted that 'To have a sneaking notion for a lady is to have a timid or concealed affection for her.'Īnd so it goes, alphabetically, beginning with abandon ('to banish, to drive away' - John Phin, 1902) and ending with a zig-zag ('drunk' - Edward Fraser and John Gibbons, 1925). The sneaking notion today means a creeping sense of something.

Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language, 'A machine in which children are enclosed to teach them to walk, and which they push forward without danger of falling.' The go-cart, which we know as a small motorized vehicle in which kids zoom around, was, according to Dr. In his new book - subtitled 'Surprising Meanings for Familiar Words' - Kacirk has collected current words and provided earlier definitions and their sources. He will, for example, consult one of the 13 first-edition volumes of the original Oxford English Dictionary at the bottom of one of two tall, full living-room bookshelves: 'Did you know that pornography meant 'a description of prostitutes or prostitution as a matter of public hygiene?' ' Each selection is accompanied by literary excerpts demonstrating the word's usage, from sources such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Chaucer, and Benjamin Franklin.Spend any time with Kacirk - author of three books, including the just- released 'Altered English' (Pomegranate Communications $22.95) - in his cozy 1908 cottage tucked among the trees in hilly Corte Madera, and he'll start opening some of his several hundred ancient reference books and dropping all kinds of titillating nuggets.

Bibiana, a fact pertinent to the word bibulous.

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. 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.įor readers of Bill Bryson, Henry Beard, and Richard Lederer, Forgotten English is an eye-opening trip down a delightful etymological path. 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.

Jeffrey kacirk