Logophile

   

A logophile is what anyone who reads this blog is likely to be - a lover of words.

"I am a lifelong logophile if not an out-and-out verbivore. I have a good ear and a good memory for words, it's just a kind of tic or trick, the way some lucky people can play a song by ear after hearing it once or count cards at blackjack or spot four-leaf clovers. Unusual and specialized words tend to lodge in my mind, where they hang around, often for years, until I need them."

(Michael Chabon, The New York Times, Feb. 8, 2007)"

Divagate

   
To divagate means to digress; to lose clarity or turn aside especially from the main subject of attention or course of argument in writing or thinking; to stray off from a subject, focus, or course.

The noun is divagation meaning a straying from the way, a diversion.

Obequitate

   

Obequitate - an obsolete intransitive verb meaning to ride about [from the Latin obequitatus , past participle of obequitare to ride about]. The noun, obequitation - is also obsolete. A shame, I fancy a bit of obequitation on a sunny day.

Sluggard

 
A sluggard is a lazy, indolent person; sxomeone who is perpetually idle or slothful.

"'Tis the voice of the sluggard;
I heard him complain,
You have waked me too soon,
I must slumber again."
Watts - the Divine Songs

Brick-nogging

 

Brick-nogging is the brickwork filled in betwen the timbers of a wood-framed wall or partition.

Gone for a burton

   

In informal British English, something or someone who has gone for a Burton is missing, permanently broken, ruined or destroyed.

The original sense was to meet one’s death, a slang term in the RAF in World War Two for pilots who were killed in action. Its first recorded appearance in print was in the New Statesman on 30 August 1941.

It's exact origin is obscure and many different versions have been put forward. The most favoured is that it was a way of avoiding referring to someone having been killed by suggesting they had only slipped out for a Beer. Burton's being one of the biggest Breweries at that time and Burton-on-Trent being the home of a number of other breweries. In addition, someone who downed their plane in the water was 'in the drink'. (There is also a hint of rhyming slang in there - Burton-on-Trent - went.)

Allegedly there was a series of advertisements for beer in the inter-war years which featured a group of people with one obviously missing, such as a football team of ten players. The tagline suggested the missing person had just popped out for a beer. The slogan was then taken up by RAF pilots for one of their number missing in action as a typical example of wartime sick humour. Whether these adverts ever existed is questionable.

It was quite a common expression in 'my day’ but perhaps it has fallen into disuse becauwe my daughter didn't recognise it when I used it recently. It’s a sad sign when expressions one is still using become ‘archaic’!

Weasand

 
Weasand is another word for the throat; the oesophagus (the throat in general); the gullet; the organ in vertebrates which consists of a muscular tube through which food passes from the pharynx to the stomach.  The word weasand has been in use since before 1000 AD.

Bantling

 

Bantling is an obsolete word for an infant or young child. I think it has a lovely sound and that it's a shame it has fallen into disuse.

Hymeneals

   
A rarely used term nowadays, hymeneals is a noun meaning wedding; the social event at which the ceremony of marriage is performed. It was a commonly used term in Victorian times. In the singular - hymeneal - it was more frequently used to refer to a wedding song or poem.

The hymen is the membraneous tissue that partly covers the entrance to the vagina of a virgin. The word comes from the Greek for membrane and Hymen was the Greek God of marriage.

Inaniloquent

 
Inaniloquent means tending to speak profusely; loquacious; garrulous; given to talking inanely; pertaining to idle talk.

I suspect there is a direct correlation between the consumption of alcohol and the increase in inaniloquence!