Words we don't use any more

[Kester Pelagius]

Fortnight gets used over here all the time.

Whatever happened to;

Kin
Hither
Forbode

And of course, who could forget Sussudio! 

Hither and yon are favorites of mine.

Don't know why those ever fell out of usage as they sound so much better than here and there.

Just me?

[Jack]

Nope, hither and yon are almost poetic.  We really need to bring this stuff back.

[zombie no.one]

Ive got a big old 2-volume dictionary, printed in around 1930. here's some words in it:

SMUTCH: To blacken, make dirty

WHIZGIG: An object that whizzes around

PECKSNIFF: an unctuous hypocrite, always prating of benevolence

QUINQUANGLE: a pentagon

SHAKE-RAG: a ragged, disreputable person

[Kester Pelagius]

Ive got a big old 2-volume dictionary, printed in around 1930. here's some words in it:

SMUTCH: To blacken, make dirty

WHIZGIG: An object that whizzes around

PECKSNIFF: an unctuous hypocrite, always prating of benevolence

QUINQUANGLE: a pentagon

SHAKE-RAG: a ragged, disreputable person

Yeah, well, in my hands is "Abbott's Popular Modern Vest Pocket Dictionary", copyright MCMXLIII in which, as I open random pages, you will find words like. . . . . .

rotogravure - a printing process

prunella - woolen fabric

quadroon - person of 1/4th Negro blood 

harum-scarum - wild

grosgrain - silk fabric

grippe - influenza

grange - farm homestead

titillate - tickle 

Well, the meaning of titillate's changed.  Never heard the word quadroon before.  How would that even come up in a conversation?

EDIT: Just checked two other dictionaries and the word "quadroon" is in both of them.  And the most recent one has a copyright of 1998!   Who uses this word?  Has anyone ever heard it before?

[Newt]

jackanapes

[schmendrik]

I don't know why you chaps are making such a hullabulloo about all this anyway.

[Rev. Powell]

EDIT: Just checked two other dictionaries and the word "quadroon" is in both of them.  And the most recent one has a copyright of 1998!   Who uses this word?  Has anyone ever heard it before?

I've heard it before, but only in discussions about obscure words like callipygian and hircine.

[Mr. DS]

I don't know why you chaps are making such a hullabulloo about all this anyway.

Indeed, all this is malarkey and we must cut the frivolity.

Side note, I use the term "groovy" a lot.  People almost 98% of the time drop their jaws in amazement. 

Then there's "tallywhacker."  It's one old guys always use at work.  "Well, it ain't like none of you nurses never seen a tallywhacker before."

The term "pecker" comes to mind.  Thank you for mentioning that term...it reminded me of one of the funniest scenes in movie history....
NSFW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIcSuyZjjIM

[Trevor]

Thy question descries the brickle nature of this civil wildness we refer to as our common culture.  Yet, methinks, with all honoured regard to ye, surely thou jesteth.  For this "dumbing down" of our culture has been fast progressing since the New Deal.  But, to point, and your quandry to examine, one might say whenas we are exhorted to speak the words we useth are those of a customary acceptance; meaning as of the common tongue.

But this thou already knowest.  Thou dost seek answer further, and justly so my friend.  Thus let us these bedlams away, which is to say, o saucy mortal, that we must be content to use speech of modern parlance rather than antique coinage.  The means, therefore, unto which our speech doth obtain comes thus from nathmore than terminology in current usage.  For, humbled though we may be by the fain beauty of imagerial words that have fallen into disuse they are perpetually replaced and succedded by nascent word-forms.

Yet, forsooth, one does lament that such as the Ovidians have become dross.  Alas youth today hath not a groatsworth of wit, for all that they have all the minutiae written by man available at their fingertips thanks to the Internet. Alas they are as mad Thyades.  So it is this sorry calamity hath come to pass, if not your inquiry an simple answer found.   

Methinks I givesth thou karmath for thish. 

[Hammock Rider]

harridan

gimcrack

skulduggery

[Kester Pelagius]

EDIT: Just checked two other dictionaries and the word "quadroon" is in both of them.  And the most recent one has a copyright of 1998!   Who uses this word?  Has anyone ever heard it before?

I've heard it before, but only in discussions about obscure words like callipygian and hircine.

I looked up "callipygian" and was surprised to find it's origin listed as Gk. "kallipygos" but not as surprised as it's definition: "having well shaped buttocks".  Now "kalli" does mean "good" but "pygos" doesn't seem like a proper word root to me.  I wonder what the etymology of this word is.  I'd bet it's origins are a poetic mistranliteration of somekind- probably of "kalligrammos", which means "shapely"- as there's no lowercase "y" In Greek though there are two lower case letters that could be mistaken for a "y" by the casual reader; but they're properly transliterated into English as "g" and "m" respectively.

Then again I'm not well versed in Greek slang.

[schmendrik]

noisome

Brobdingnagian

Now if I really wanted to cheat I'd pull any random Lovecraft novel off the shelf and just start paging through. But I'm trying to do this by memory.

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

EDIT: Just checked two other dictionaries and the word "quadroon" is in both of them.  And the most recent one has a copyright of 1998!   Who uses this word?  Has anyone ever heard it before?

I've heard it before, but only in discussions about obscure words like callipygian and hircine.

I looked up "callipygian" and was surprised to find it's origin listed as Gk. "kallipygos" but not as surprised as it's definition: "having well shaped buttocks".  Now "kalli" does mean "good" but "pygos" doesn't seem like a proper word root to me.  I wonder what the etymology of this word is.  I'd bet it's origins are a poetic mistranliteration of somekind- probably of "kalligrammos", which means "shapely"- as there's no lowercase "y" In Greek though there are two lower case letters that could be mistaken for a "y" by the casual reader; but they're properly transliterated into English as "g" and "m" respectively.

Then again I'm not well versed in Greek slang.

If I recall correct, the modern resurgence of callipygian use was from a Thomas Pynchon novel, and might have been mis applied translation.
-Ed

[The Burgomaster]

jackanapes

Actually, (and surprisingly) I use this word quite frequently.  When I'm driving and someone cuts me off or drives really slow in front of me or pulls some other bonehead move, my tirade usually starts with, "Nice move, you f&%$ing jackanape!"  One of my buddies used to say this word a lot about 20 years ago and it just stuck with me.

Here are a few other word we don't use anymore:

* Hooch ("Hey, give me a swig of that hooch!")
* Obliged  ("Much obliged, ma'am.")
* Vittles ("Hey, rustle me up some vittles!")
* Dough ("Can I borrow some dough?")
* Stepping Out ("I'm stepping out with my best girl tonight.")
* Courting ("Those young'uns have been courting for 2 years.")
* Moving Pictures / Picture Show ("Hey let's go to the moving pictures / picture show on Saturday.")

[Ash]

Hussy

NOUN:
pl. hus·sies
1. A woman considered brazen or immoral.
2. A saucy or impudent girl.

(and speaking of saucy...)

Saucy

ADJECTIVE:
sauc·i·er , sauc·i·est

1.
   a. Impertinent or disrespectful.
   b. Impertinent in an entertaining way; impossible to repress or control.

2. Piquant; pert: a saucy red bow tie.