the end of an era (the 1300’s)
friends, i knew this day would eventually come and though i have been preparing for it mentally these last 5 weeks, nothing could brace me for the anguish i felt upon awakening this morning knowing that the archaic and provincial f-words series would soon meet its bitter end. i briefly considered word-blogging archaic e-words, but that seemed kinda arbitrary (plus: words that begin with e are lame).
[part the final: FOX-IN-THE-HOLE to FYLLOK]

FOX-IN-THE-HOLE. A type of game where boys hopped on one leg and beat one another with or pieces of leather tied at the end of strings
FOXY. Said of beer which has not fermented properly 
FRAME-PERSON. A visitor whom it is thought requisite to receive ceremoniously
FRAM-WARD. In an opposite direction 
FRANCH. To scrunch with the teeth 
FRAZE. Half a quarter of a sheet of paper 
FREAMING. Said of the noise a boar makes in rutting time 
FREE-MARTIN. If a cow has twin calves of different sexes, the female is termed a free martin, and is said never to breed 
FRENCHMAN. Any man of any country that cannot speak English
FRESCADES. Cool refreshments
FRIMICATE. To affect delicacy; to give one’s self airs about trifles
FRIPPERY. An old clothes shop 
FRODMORTELL. A free pardon for murder or manslaughter
FROSLING. Any thing as a plant or animal nipped or injured by frost
FRUITESTERE. A female seller of fruit
FUCKWIND. A species of hawk 
FUDDLE. To intoxicate fish
FUDGEL. An awkward child 
FUGLEMAN. A person who directs the cheering of a crowd or mob 
FULLAMS. False dice. There are high fullams and low fullams to denote loaded on the high or low number 
FULLOCK. To jerk the hand unlawfully
FURCHURE. The place where the thighs part 
FYLLOK. A wanton girl

now, if you will allow me a moment to vent my despair, i will excuse myself to a public place and fullock like a chronic masturbator on a benzedrine bender.

the end of an era (the 1300’s)

friends, i knew this day would eventually come and though i have been preparing for it mentally these last 5 weeks, nothing could brace me for the anguish i felt upon awakening this morning knowing that the archaic and provincial f-words series would soon meet its bitter end. i briefly considered word-blogging archaic e-words, but that seemed kinda arbitrary (plus: words that begin with e are lame).

[part the final: FOX-IN-THE-HOLE to FYLLOK]

  • FOX-IN-THE-HOLE. A type of game where boys hopped on one leg and beat one another with or pieces of leather tied at the end of strings
  • FOXY. Said of beer which has not fermented properly
  • FRAME-PERSON. A visitor whom it is thought requisite to receive ceremoniously
  • FRAM-WARD. In an opposite direction
  • FRANCH. To scrunch with the teeth
  • FRAZE. Half a quarter of a sheet of paper
  • FREAMING. Said of the noise a boar makes in rutting time
  • FREE-MARTIN. If a cow has twin calves of different sexes, the female is termed a free martin, and is said never to breed
  • FRENCHMAN. Any man of any country that cannot speak English
  • FRESCADES. Cool refreshments
  • FRIMICATE. To affect delicacy; to give one’s self airs about trifles
  • FRIPPERY. An old clothes shop
  • FRODMORTELL. A free pardon for murder or manslaughter
  • FROSLING. Any thing as a plant or animal nipped or injured by frost
  • FRUITESTERE. A female seller of fruit
  • FUCKWIND. A species of hawk
  • FUDDLE. To intoxicate fish
  • FUDGEL. An awkward child
  • FUGLEMAN. A person who directs the cheering of a crowd or mob
  • FULLAMS. False dice. There are high fullams and low fullams to denote loaded on the high or low number
  • FULLOCK. To jerk the hand unlawfully
  • FURCHURE. The place where the thighs part
  • FYLLOK. A wanton girl

now, if you will allow me a moment to vent my despair, i will excuse myself to a public place and fullock like a chronic masturbator on a benzedrine bender.

the penultimate edition

you know how when you are grinding down forks and your house becomes dirty with all that dust? well, there is a word for that.

also: you know how when you (or your nurse) are rolling around in bed having a grand old time and then you (or your nurse) realise that you accidentally squished some baby (it happens to the best of us)? well, there is a word for that as well.

[part the fourth: FLUTTERGRUB to FOURINGS]

  • FLUTTERGRUB. A field labourer
  • FLYABOSTIC. Outrageously showy as in dress
  • FNASTE. To breathe hard
  • FOAP. To comb back
  • FOLE-LARGE. Foolishly liberal
  • FOMBLITUDE. A weak comparison
  • FOOT-ALE. A fine of beer paid by a workman on entering a new place
  • FOREGANGER. One who goes before
  • FORK-DUST. The dust made in grinding forks
  • FORKELYD. Wrinkled with age
  • FORREL. The cover of a book
  • FOR-LY. To overlay and kill a child as a nurse or mother sometimes does accidentally
  • FOR-SLEUTHE. To lose through sloth; to be spoilt from lying idle
  • FOR-SNEYE. To do evil slyly
  • FOR-SONGEN. Tired with singing
  • FOR-SWAT. Covered with sweat
  • FOR-SWONK. Tired with labour
  • FOR-TEACH. To unteach
  • FOR-ȜODE. Lost, forgot, or omitted
  • FORTH-RIGHT. A straight or direct path
  • FOURINGS. An afternoon meal taken at 4 o’clock

more f-words from yesteryear

[part the third: FLAP-DRAGON to FLURT]

this week’s edition contains a mésalliance of both handy definitions (“a side of bacon”, “to laugh sarcastically”), balderdash™-style descriptions (“the person who puts the feather on an arrow”, “having a mouth like a flounder”), and suessian whimsy (flee flowns, flibberjibber, and flothery). enjoy:

  • FLAP-DRAGON. A small substance such as a plum or candle end set afloat in a cup of spirits and when set on fire, snatched by the mouth and swallowed. This was a common amusement in former times but is now nearly obsolete
  • FLAWPS. An awkward, noisy, untidy, and slovenly person
  • FLAZE. A smoky flame
  • FLEACHES. Portions into which timber is cut by the saw
  • FLEAMY. Clotted with blood
  • FLEE FLOWNS. The eggs of flies in meat
  • FLECK. a side of bacon
  • FLETCHER. An arrow maker. Properly the person who put on the feather
  • FLIBBERGIBBER. A lying knave
  • FLIGHT-SHOT. The distance a flight arrow would go, about a fifth part of a mile
  • FLIPPERING. Crying, weeping
  • FLIT. To move, especially at night to cheat the landlord
  • FLIZZEN. To laugh sarcastically
  • FLIZZOMS. Flying particles
  • FLOKE MOWTHEDE. Having a mouth like a flounder
  • FLOOD MARK. The mark which the sea at the highest tide makes on the shore
  • FLOP. the scrotum
  • FLOTHERY. Slovenly but attempting to be fine and showy
  • FLUMP. a heavy fall
  • FLURCH. A great quantity
  • FLURT. To snap the fingers derisively. Hence any satirical action or speech

[part the second: FERLY to FLAPDOODLE]

thus resumes the second part of my poolitzer-nominated series within a series of select f-words from this ferly dictionary:

  • FERLY. Wonderfully strange
  • FERNYERE. In former times
  • FEVER-LURDEN. The disease of idleness
  • FEZZON. To seize on—generally applied to the actions of a greedy ravenous eater
  • FILL DIKE. The month of February
  • FIMASHINGS. In hunting, the dung of any kind of wild beasts
  • FIPPLE. The under lip
  • FIRST FOOT. The name given to the first person who first enters a dwelling house on New Year’s day
  • FIRSUN. Furze or gorse
  • FISS BUTTOCKED SOW. A fat, coarse, vulgar, presuming woman
  • FIX. A lamb yeaned dead
  • FLACKET. A girl whose clothes hang loosely about her
  • FLAG. A flake of snow
  • FLANKER. A spark of fire
  • FLANTUM FLATHERUM PIEBALD DILL. A woman fantastically dressed with various colours
  • FLAPDOODLE. The stuff fools are said to nourished on

provincial f-words from the 14th century

bros, i started the f-word series as a way of showcasing some choice morsels from specialised dictionaries. i chose words that start with f partly because of my infantile preoccupation with labiodental fricatives but also because enabling limits on my search meant that i would have more free time to hang out with my buddies at applebee’s and talk about witty hollister t-shirts. this system had been going swell until my good friend orson, dropped this onto my desk and my world shattered.

its full title is: a dictionary of arcahic and provincial words, obsolete phrases, proverbs, and ancient customs, from the fourteenth century (1850)—and it is worthy of a 5 part series within a series.

[part the first: FADGY to FELSH]

  • FADGY. Corpulent; unwieldy
  • FAEGANG. A gang of beggars
  • FAFF. To move violently
  • FAIR-TRO-DAYS. Daylight
  • FAITOUR. An idle lazy fellow; a scoundrel; a flatterer; Hence, a general term of reproach
  • FALDORE. A trap-door
  • FALLE. A mouse-trap
  • FALLINGS. Dropped fruit
  • FALLOWFORTH. A waterfall
  • FAMBLE. To stutter, or murmur inarticulately
  • FANGAST. Fit for marriage, said of a maid
  • FANOM-WATER. The acrimonious discharge from the sores of cattle
  • FANTICKLES. Freckles
  • FARAND. Used in composition for advancing towards, or being ready. Fighting farand: ready for fighting. Farand-man: a traveller or itinerant merchant
  • FARREL. The fourth part of a circular oatcake, the division being made by a cross
  • FARTHINGS. Flattened peas
  • FASGUNTIDE (1) Trouble; care; anxiety; fatigue (2) The tops of turnips
  • FASYL. A flaw in cloth
  • FEANT. A fool
  • FEATLET. Four pounds of butter
  • FEELDY. Grassy
  • FEER. to run a little way back for the better advantage of leaping forwards
  • FELSH. To renovate a hat

cock ale

i have tasted some weird treats in my lifetime but the thought of adding chicken gravy (and nutmeg) to my beer makes me want to dry heave.

Take a cock of half a year old, kill him and truss him well, and put into a cask twelve gallons of Ale to which add four pounds of raisins of the sun well picked; sliced Dates, nutmegs and mace.

Then boil the cock in a manner to a jelly; then press the body of him extremely well, and put the liquor into the cask where the Ale is, with the spices and fruit; then put to it a pint of new Ale yeast, and let it work well for a day. if it proves too strong, you may add more plain Ale to palliate this restorative drink, which contributes much to the invigorating of nature°.

bonus information: other popular beer cups (ale drinks with additives) at the beginning of the eighteenth century were named:

Humpty-dumpty, Clamber-clown, Hugmatee, Stick-back, Knock-me-down, Fox-comb, Stiffle, Blind Pinneaux, Stephony and Northdown.

from: the curiosities of ale and beer, by john bickerdyke, 1886.

September 9, 2009
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my world of warcraft nom de guerre

kennings have been on m’mind ALL WEEK. here is a tasty little trivia-nugget brimming with kick-ass eths and thorns regarding recursive kennings »

The longest kenning found in skaldic poetry occurs in Hafgerðingadrápa by Þórður Sjáreksson and reads nausta blakks hlé-mána gífrs drífu gim-slöngvir “fire-brandisher of blizzard of ogress of protection-moon of steed of boat-shed”, which simply means “warrior”.

having a cow
it is an oft-cited tradition among members of the harvard universe that tenured professors at that college are allowed the privilege of letting their cows graze in harvard yard. no modern day professor has ever asserted this esoteric right to pasture…until now.
on september 10 at 1630, harvey cox, the hollis professor of divinity (wearing full academic regalia) will lead a “scottish highland long-haired cow, with fetching bangs, or a jersey, with soulful eyes” into harvard yard for the first time in over 200 years. a minister will then offer an invocation to assembled faculty members, students, friends, cox, the cow, and yours truly.  the company will adjourn to the divinity school for refreshments and to listen to a 17-piece big band where cox plays tenor sax and the cows (presumably) play the cow bells.
more here. less here.  photo credit.

having a cow

it is an oft-cited tradition among members of the harvard universe that tenured professors at that college are allowed the privilege of letting their cows graze in harvard yard. no modern day professor has ever asserted this esoteric right to pasture…until now.

on september 10 at 1630, harvey cox, the hollis professor of divinity (wearing full academic regalia) will lead a “scottish highland long-haired cow, with fetching bangs, or a jersey, with soulful eyes” into harvard yard for the first time in over 200 years. a minister will then offer an invocation to assembled faculty members, students, friends, cox, the cow, and yours truly. the company will adjourn to the divinity school for refreshments and to listen to a 17-piece big band where cox plays tenor sax and the cows (presumably) play the cow bells.

more here. less herephoto credit.

August 25, 2009
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diæresis pieces

i think that we can all agree that english is a pretty bitching language and i don’t want to be overly diacritical, but i amn’t alone in wishing that english orthography contained at least a few more interesting characters.

here is a wikipedia list of the small number of english words that actually have diacritical marks. most of these are loan words from klingon and old elvis but a few words like reëlect and blessèd° are ACTUALLY NATIVE ENGLISH WORDS WITH DIACRITICS.

that stooopid grave accent on blessèd is stooopid and deserves to be forgotten about but the diæresis (NOT to be confused with its germanic doppelgänger, the umlaut) on reëlect must be preserved at all costs. and that is why i am instituting this usage as the ragbag house style (i hear that the new yorker may be copycatting me in this nostalgic hypercorrection). here is a list of english language words that are blinged out in diæreses:

  • boötes
  • continuüm
  • coöperate [-ion, -ive]
  • coöpt
  • coördinate [-ed, -ing, -ion, -or, -ors]
  • daïs
  • naïf
  • naïve
  • naïveté
  • faïence
  • noël
  • noöne
  • oölogy
  • opïum
  • preëminent [-ly]
  • preëmpt [-ion, -ive]
  • reëlect [-ed, -ing]
  • reënter [-ed, -ing]
  • reëstablish [-ed, -ing]
  • residuüm
  • zaïre
  • zoölogy

if you catch me writing one of these words in the future without the bling, i will abandon vegetarianism for 1 day. also, just for lols i will try and write the following words the way they originally appeared in english: cañón, rôle, piraña, hôtel, élite, and dépôt.

demanding satisfaction
if you live your life according to the code duello the way that i do, you will know that in duels, the challenged party has the right to choose the dueling weapons. these could be anything from knives to ninja stars to (apocryphally) tainted sausages.
of course there has never been a dual more preposterous or unusual than the one that took place between french hot air balloonists armed with blunderbusses (a type of proto-shotgun) over the city of paris in 1808:

…Early in the nineteenth century, a Monsieur de Grandpé and a Monsieur de Pique…had quarreled over Mademoiselle Tirevit, a famous dancer who was the mistress of the former but had been discovered in compromising circumstances with the latter. They decided to fight it out in balloons and on May 3, 1808.
Watched by a huge crowd which had been drawn by the sight of the balloons but little imagined the purpose they were meant to serve, each combatant climbed into his car, armed with a blunderbuss, since pistols would obviously have been ineffective in the circumstances. At nine o’clock the cords were cut and the balloons rose majestically into the air keeping within about eighty yards of each other. When they had risen some 2,000 feet, Monsieur de Pique fired his blunderbuss without result. His fire was returned almost immediately by Monsieur de Grandpré, whose shot punctured his adversary’s balloon, so that it hurtled to the ground dashing Monsieur de Pique and his second [a trusted representative] to pieces on a rooftop. The triumphant Grandpré then drifted happily away from the scene of his victory to land safely at a distance of seventeen miles from Paris.

from robert baldick’s the duel (1965).

demanding satisfaction

if you live your life according to the code duello the way that i do, you will know that in duels, the challenged party has the right to choose the dueling weapons. these could be anything from knives to ninja stars to (apocryphally) tainted sausages.

of course there has never been a dual more preposterous or unusual than the one that took place between french hot air balloonists armed with blunderbusses (a type of proto-shotgun) over the city of paris in 1808:

…Early in the nineteenth century, a Monsieur de Grandpé and a Monsieur de Pique…had quarreled over Mademoiselle Tirevit, a famous dancer who was the mistress of the former but had been discovered in compromising circumstances with the latter. They decided to fight it out in balloons and on May 3, 1808.

Watched by a huge crowd which had been drawn by the sight of the balloons but little imagined the purpose they were meant to serve, each combatant climbed into his car, armed with a blunderbuss, since pistols would obviously have been ineffective in the circumstances. At nine o’clock the cords were cut and the balloons rose majestically into the air keeping within about eighty yards of each other. When they had risen some 2,000 feet, Monsieur de Pique fired his blunderbuss without result. His fire was returned almost immediately by Monsieur de Grandpré, whose shot punctured his adversary’s balloon, so that it hurtled to the ground dashing Monsieur de Pique and his second [a trusted representative] to pieces on a rooftop. The triumphant Grandpré then drifted happily away from the scene of his victory to land safely at a distance of seventeen miles from Paris.

from robert baldick’s the duel (1965).

July 30, 2009
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front matters
i love me a good old timey title page. perhaps this is because old timey title pages bring together three of the nineteen pillars that the ragbag is based upon: typography & design, esoteric knowledge, literature, and huffing glue. the foxy specimen above is from the english translation* of the manual of classical erotology (1884).



revel in: the latin AND scholarly euphemisms for what basically means “a book about the greeks and romans boning eachother.”


notice that: the book’s author, (scholar and philosopher) frederick charles forberg abbreviates BOTH his fore and middle names into four-letter chunks.


and finally, savor: the fact that this book is only 1 of 100 private copies printed solely for the amusement of a pleasuremongering viscount (with a masters degree) and his rakish bros.



*please note that this title page is from the literal english translation and should NOT BE CONFUSED WITH the non-literal, liberally poetic, australian, ebonics, or l33t english versions.

front matters
i love me a good old timey title page. perhaps this is because old timey title pages bring together three of the nineteen pillars that the ragbag is based upon: typography & design, esoteric knowledge, literature, and huffing glue. the foxy specimen above is from the english translation* of the manual of classical erotology (1884).

  • revel in: the latin AND scholarly euphemisms for what basically means “a book about the greeks and romans boning eachother.”
  • notice that: the book’s author, (scholar and philosopher) frederick charles forberg abbreviates BOTH his fore and middle names into four-letter chunks.
  • and finally, savor: the fact that this book is only 1 of 100 private copies printed solely for the amusement of a pleasuremongering viscount (with a masters degree) and his rakish bros.

*please note that this title page is from the literal english translation and should NOT BE CONFUSED WITH the non-literal, liberally poetic, australian, ebonics, or l33t english versions.

spotting the liripoop

with graduation ceremonies upon us, let us not forget about the game: spot the liripoop.

the liripoop is of course the long tail of a graduate’s hood.

May 15, 2009
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the old english word for sneeze is

fnéosan

regrettably the o.e.d. does not venture a pronunciation. also, the much more stuffy (ie. latin) word for the same act is: sternutation.

April 29, 2009
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a dedication worth noting

the dedication in mrs. frances simpson’s, cats for pleasure and profit (1905) reads:

To the many kind friends, known and unknown, that i have made in Pussydom

April 16, 2009
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the borrowed days

are the last three days of march. from the book of days:

The popular notion is, that they were borrowed by March from April, with a view to the destruction of a parcel of unoffending young sheep—a purpose, however, in which March was not successful. The whole affair is conveyed in a rhyme thus given at the firesides of the Scottish peasantry:

‘March said to Aperill,
I see three hoggs” upon a hill,
And if you’ll lend me dayes three,
I’ll find a way to make them dee.
The first o’ them was wind and weet,
The second o’ them was snaw and sleet,
The third o’ them was sic a freeze,
It froze the birds’ nebs to the trees:
When the three days were past and gave,
The three silly hoggs came hirpling’ hame.’

for a similar irish tradition: this.

March 29, 2009
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