Below is an article form my local community newspaper, I thought it was worth sharing….
Who doesn’t love the power of words?
By Susan Willett
In my business, one has to love words. True, some of my favorites and most often used remain unprintable in a family (or any other) newspaper, but still, one simply has to love the power and beauty of words. I mean, what can’t they do? They can bring one great joy, terrible agony and nearly every emotion in between, depending on the skill of their user. The pen really can be mightier than the sword, as long as one isn’t attempting to defend oneself in a duel, I guess. So last month when the Wayne State Word Warriors revealed their list of words most worth of retrieval and reentry in common usage, I was especially interested. In a preface to the list, the Warriors explained that most of these words have fallen out of common use and are on the brink of obsolescence. Bringing them back, said Jerry Herron, the dean of the Honors College, "is just another way of broadening our horizons." Well butter my buns and call me a biscuit, Jerry, but to my great consternation, many of these haven’t really fallen out of usage with some old fogies, such as myself. I was way too familiar with several of them, which made me feel as antiquated as, well, as some of the others sound. Here’s the list, see what you think. • Buncombe Rubbish; nonsense; empty or misleading talk. What a relief to have the election over — that great festival of buncombe that so distracted the nation for months. • Cerulean The blue of the sky. Her eyes were a clear, deep cerulean blue, like no eyes Trevor had ever seen, and looking into them made him feel lighter than air. • Chelonian Like a turtle (and who doesn’t like turtles?). Weighed down by bickering and blather, the farm bill crept through Congress at a chelonian pace. • Dragoon To compel by coercion; to force someone to do something they’d rather not. After working in the yard all day, Michael was dragooned into going to the ballet instead of flopping down to watch the Redwings on TV. • Fantods Extreme anxiety, distress, nervousness or irritability. Jeremy’s love of islands was tempered by the fact that driving over high bridges always gave him the raging fantods. • Mawkish Excessively sentimental; sappy; hopelessly trite. To her surprise, Beth found Robert’s words of love to be so mawkish that they made her feel sticky, as though she were being painted with molasses. • Natter To talk aimlessly, often at great length; rarely, it means simply to converse. You can tell our staff meetings are winding down when everybody starts nattering about their kids. • Persiflage Banter; frivolous talk. Emma hoped to get Lady Astor into a serious conversation, but as long as the King was around she could elicit only persiflage and gossip. • Troglodyte Literally, a cave-dweller. More frequently a backward, mentally sluggish person. Susan felt she could have saved the company if only the troglodytes in management had taken her advice. • Winkle To pry out or extract something; from the process of removing the snail from an edible periwinkle. Jack showed no inclination to leave his seat beside Alice, but Roger was determined towinkle him out of that chair no matter what it took. See what I mean? I may be mawkishly nattering on at a chelonian pace, but trogdolytes who can’t winkle some fun out of words give me the fantods. They should be dragooned into a library until the persiflage and buncombe of their vocabularies is transformed into a cerulean streak of intelligent discourse.
http://www.associatednewspapers.net/editions/eagle013113/index.html#/6/zoomed
I hope you enjoyed….
God Bless
Paul Sposite
An American Point of View 