I love words, old ones, new ones, made up ones. Jeffrey's books deals with the most delicious mix of remarkable forgotten english words. I thought I would post my favourites, but that would be the whole book, so I have chosen a few at random. The best thing to do is buy the book. Have look at Jeffrey's website for heaps more amazing words, books and a 2010 calender of vanishing vocabulary:
http://www.forgottenenglish.com/ . But right now lets have a brief look at some of the wonderful bizarre old english.
miscomfrumple: To rumple, crease. If one female sits so close to another as to rumple or crease her dress by pressing or sitting upon it, she is said to
miscomfrumple it.(Northhamptonshire (J.Wright)
yird-swine: A
mysterious, dreaded sort of animal, called the yird swine, was believed to live in graveyards, burrowing among the dead bodies and devouring them.(Gregor)
Witch's-stirrups: Matted locks in a horse's mane. (Jackson)
ninny-broth: Popular name for coffee. (Nares)
I just love this one as I am a coffee addict...sorry...ninnybroth addict!
merry-go-sorry: A mixture of laughing and crying (R.lHunter)
pixilated: Led astray, as if by pixies; confused, bewildered, intoxicated (Mathews)
mobble: To dress grossly or inelegantly. (Walker)
thrunched: Very angry, despleased. (Mackay)
and last but not least...
offmagandy: The best and choicest of delicacies. Rich, stiff cream would be described as 'real offmagandy." (Darlington).
Jeffrey dedicates the collection to Lewis Carroll, who was inspired by antiquated English to imagine words like the wonderful "Jabberwocky,"
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
My contribution to such wonderful words:
I'm thrunched. I needed my offmagandy and ninnybroth however the restaurant owner looked at me, huffed loudly, looked down his hooked nose and sneered just one word 'mobble'. How dare he. I held my head high and told him in no uncertain terms that he looked like witches stirrups or more so like a yard swine. I went on in the hautiest voice that I muster up from within that I had been miscomfrumpled on the way here.
He then suggested I have been pixilated. At that comment I slumped down in a merry go sorry state.
I know, I know, a dreadful piece and a cheek to put that up straight after Lewis Carroll...but that is the beauty of having ones own blog. Poetic licence or just plain 'cos I can', anyway, back to 'The Word Museum', you can see how delicious this book is and besides learning what 'used to be' one can have so much fun with it all as well.
That's it from me on this subject...for now....signed rosie 'gapesnest' (see if you can find out what it means).
Posts
My girlfriend gave me the piece of black and white check cotton. I pasted if on the far side of the book and made marks with my black uni pin pen on the other side and as usual it flowed. I don't know why but it reminds me of the inners of a clock but of course there are many other elements included in my eclectic style.
I would like to introduce Billy and his keeper Renoo. Billy loves nothing better than to eat rocks (hence Rock a Billy). they roam the countrside together with the other creatures of Bazoo devouring rocks. Renoo keeps all his belonging around his neck for safety.
My pen collection is varied and vast and every now and then I feel guilty they haven't had a turn so this page I used my ZIG blues. I began with the long horizontal shape (one line) but quickly came in with the second and straight away sea creatures were born. I can't help myself with becoming intricate so the bottom of the lagoon is a world within itself. Of course in my world of imagination there are dwellings everywher and anywhere.
I so enjoyed doing this. I started this page with the shape which is now the head of the model on the far right of the page using ZIG pens in their pure brown. After about 5minutes of looking I added one stroke which is now her neck from there it all flowed. As I said in the beginning of this journal I gradually refine and arrange and here I needed balance which came about with the birds. Birds of course are my staple diet in my art.
Oh! how I love graffiti. I don't profess to do it well at all but it is something I keep trying. Alphabet horse came about when I was just playing with 'free sewing'. The shape I made accidently looked like a horse and for no good reason I sewed some metal alphabet's on it and decided to use it on this page....again, intuitive working as I painted the page (acrylic) and just stuck the horse on and it tended to tell me 'graffiti'. It took off from there.
A girlfriend and I were discussing how 'head talk' interrrupts art process. Especially for women. We both agreed, we would settle in (if we finally get to that point) and make progress when the 'head talk' starts....better do this better do that...don't sit and fiddle with art and if we listen enough our art process becomes unravelled therefore our work suffers. This piece I guess, whilst not contrived in any way, it did begin with a thought.
I had not long returned from Cambodia when I began this piece. The pages had been pre-painted with acrylic before I left and I was most surprised, again, working intuitively what evolved. Of course in Cambodia there is lush and tangled nature but to produce that was never a concious decision
Kinda hard to see this but it was thoroughly enjoyable to do.
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