Obsolete words we need to bring back
I love words. D’uh. But modern words don’t always do it for me, y’know? Language evolves and it should, but modern language is so… cut-down? Fast? Efficient maybe. And in that efficiency, I feel we’ve lost a lot of that juicy, delicious, sumptuous description that used to be part of everyday language. Sure, it could be flowery and took time to get to the point, but maybe that’s just it. We move so quickly now, everything goes so fast, we don’t communicate in that way any longer. Personal opinion, of course, but I think we’re the less for it.
In that evolutionary cutting down, rafts of amazing descriptive archaic words have gone by the wayside. Some of them must have been mistakes, because they perfectly capture certain concepts in a way we no longer have a description for. Why ever did we leave them behind?
Top 3 favourite obsolete words that I need in my life
Overmorrow
The day after tomorrow. This is my personal favourite. I love it.
Bedward
Heading for bed. Efficient, right? It means exactly what it says.
Crapulous
Feeling crappy as a result of too much eating and drinking. Think of how you feel the day after a multi-course, high-fat holiday family dinner with lots of wine. Yup – crapulous. It’s perfect!
These are great, right? I use them whenever I can. I even got my grown kids doing it. We’re on a mission to get the world reacquainted with these. And why not? They save time in description. For example:
My buddy: “Dude, when can you get over here and help me eat all this corn on the cob I bought from the farmer’s market? It’s not going to last until the weekend.”
Me: “Well, you shouldn’t have bought an entire sack of it just because it was in season, but anyway…. I’m working tomorrow. How about overmorrow when I’m off?”
Isn’t that better than, “No man, can’t tomorrow. How about the day after tomorrow?”. It just sounds so much better.
My logic is flawless. Fight me.
More archaic words we need in our lives
Aside from my top picks, in my opinion, there are countless other supposedly obsolete words we should have never let go and definitely should continue to make space for in the modern world. Here are a few you might want to think about resurrecting in your every day speech. In no particular order:
Jargogle
This verb dates back to the 1600s and means to confuse things or mix things up. And it’s so fun to say! Why this one ever went by the wayside jargogles my brain.
Betwixt
In the interval or between. I always liked this one. To me, it sounds more refined than simply being between.
Chork
The sound your shoes make when you’re walking in them and they’re full of water. This one is of Scottish origin, but I think everyone should use it as a descriptive. Beautiful onomatopoeia if you ask me. I can just hear it, “splash, splash, chork, chork, chork…”
Snowbrowth
From the 1500s, this refers to freshly melted snow, or the liquid and mush that occurs when snow melts – literally a broth of snow. Living in an area where we get snowy winters, I can attest to having seen snowbrowth on many occasions as the days warm approaching spring.
Twitterlight
An early 1600s alternative to twilight that was still used into the 1920s. I’m not exactly sure how they decided which to use or if they were used interchangeably. When I see this word? It seems a more apt description of that time of day when the sun’s rays are being refracted by the atmosphere. Maybe to be used on sunny as opposed to cloudy days when you wouldn’t see that refraction with the same sparkle? If anyone knows the distinction between twitterlight vs twilight (if there is one), call it out in the comments.
Beef-witted
Similar to dim-witted or dull-witted, this word historically also described someone with a lack of intelligence, but with more sting! Like so many others, we have Shakespeare to thank for its creation. It appears in the play Troilus and Cressida where Thersites says to Ajax:
The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!
I doubt someone who’s actually beef-witted would even get the insult, but it’s certainly light years more satisfying to hurl in their direction than: “You’re not very smart, are ya?”.
Snattock
A scrap, slice, or fragment. Just a little bit of something. Words like fragment or scrap just don’t carry the same nuance, do they? For example:
“Would you like a slice of cake?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do a whole slice this close to dinner, but it smells absolutely amazing.”
“It did come out quite scrummy. Just a snattock then, so you can have a taste?”
Groke
Dogs do this all the time. It’s that intent stare at you while you eat while they hope you’ll give them some. Dogs aren’t the only ones who groke, though. Anyone who is craving the food you’re eating but don’t want to be rude and outright ask you, can give you that same silent look hoping you’ll share.
Cockalorum
A boastful person, a braggart, someone who is self-important. This is another good one. It sounds like a rooster crowing with its chest thrown out and a perfect description for that sort of person. You can just picture them all puffed up and full of themselves.
Growlery
We have Charles Dickens to thank for this one. It refers to a place where you can retreat from the world when you’re in a bad mood. Sounds exactly like the designated place you should go to get rid of that grumbly, snarly mood, doesn’t it?
Ereyesterday
The day before yesterday. This one doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily as some of the others. It’s certainly efficient, though – one word rather than our modern four to describe that point in time. I could get on board with that.
Solennial
Another one with origins in the 1600s, this means occurring once per year and is another word for annual. I like that it more accurately describes our trip around the sun.
Welcome to our solennial celebration of the founding of our charter!
These are only a sample and there are so many others still worthy of use in our modern world. I’m sure we could find a place for them. Especially as these obsolete words and others like them do a better job describing than many of our modern words of choice.
Food for thought
Language continues to evolve and new terms based around the technology we use will continue to creep into our vocabulary, because they must – these are things we use and talk about every day. But maybe while we’re adopting those new terms we don’t be so complacent about letting go of others. It doesn’t have to be either/or. Why can’t it be both? We are humans, after all, and words like prompt, automation, roboethics, AI, or metaverse can’t completely capture our reality, because we’re more than only that. Those are tools we use, not the people using them. Maybe we can meld the technotallk with some of these rich and vibrant words of old and even the ones we still use today to help offset the clinical, soulless machine-permeated world around us. It could be a way to ensure the heart of humanity is never wholly lost amidst the technology.