Lexigame Community
General Category => Words => Topic started by: les303 on July 02, 2021, 04:49:39 PM
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Sorry Alan, i should have started a new thread in the first place as it was not my intention to reignite the nimby discussion, i was simply trying to copy the following quote from that thread ;
" I didn't think there were a lot of obsolete words classed as common, Les."
You are correct Alan, there are not a lot of obsolete words or archaic spellings that are classed as common & that just makes it all the more frustrating when you do come across one, especially if they just happen to be the last " common " word that you are looking for.
I have noticed a couple that have come up recently ; troth & faerie & would appreciate it if you would consider making both of these words rare.
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I suppose, to be consistent, we should also allow the older spelling of queene with an additional e.
;D
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No doubt that it was a best seller in 1590
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Ah, but that was only Part ! - the first three books.
The sequel (books 4-6) didn't appear until a few years later.
It probably picked up a few brown-nose awards for flattery - in praise of 'Gloriana' = QE I
:D
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;D
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Faerie nuff!
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;D
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;D
Which applies, Les?
(https://www.quotemaster.org/images/38/382e8969bc8b5d517fb8d691fe64eefd.jpg)(https://www.wisefamousquotes.com/images/a-man-of-few-words-quotes-by-kensington-gore-30915.jpg) (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/27/53/44/275344f8165449fb1d01bfbf16b7028d.png)
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Depends how many beers are in the fridge.
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or were in the fridge and now in les.
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I'm sure Les drinks his beer in moderation >:D
(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/81694078.jpg)
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Pen, your post has reminded me of an incident from many years ago.
I was having a quiet drink with a couple of mates (Rick & Tony) at the Royal Hotel at Nundah. ( Nundah is where i was living at the time, it is a small suburb on the northside of Brisbane.)
An announcement came over the P.A. that the manager was offering $200 cash for anyone who could drink 6 schooners of 4x beer in 30 minutes.
However, if you failed to complete the task, you had to pay for all six beers which came to a cost of about $25.
A long lineup quickly formed & we watched on as the first bloke failed miserably.
He was jeered & mocked by the crowd which had formed & suffered much more humiliation as he returned to his table.
The lineup shortened considerably but another brave patron stepped up to take on the task only to be met with the same humiliation.
At the same time, both Rick & Tony excitedly encouraged me to have a go.
" Les, you could do this standing on your ear !!! " they both exclaimed.
If you have a go & can't do it, then we will pay for the beers so long as you split the $200 with us.
I am not sure, i replied.
Just give me a few minutes to think about.
I then pushed back my chair & left the pub.
I returned about 30 minutes later to see the final unsuccessful participant handing over his $25.
I went straight to the bar & asked if it was too late for me to have a go & with a simple nod from the manager, the barman set up the drinks & turned on the timer.
The dwindling crowd began to grow again as word spread that someone was a chance of winning the $200.
They even began to chant as i drank each glass back to back & an enormous cheer erupted as i drank the last schooner down with 2 minutes to spare.
As i divided up my winnings with Rick & Tony, Rick asked where i had gone for 30 minutes when i left the pub to think about it for a few minutes.
Well, i explained, i was so nervous about being humiliated like all of those other blokes were, i went up to the other pub on the corner to make sure that i could do it first...
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That's hilarious Les :laugh: Cheered up my Monday morning no end!
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I see the word faerie quite often in fantasy literature. Not at all rare there.
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Faerie of course is not the same as fairy.
It could be argued that Faerie, which is an archaic term for Fairyland, should not be allowed in Chi at all since it is a place name and should be capitalized.
In Spenser's Faerie Queene, Gloriana (Queen Elizabeth I) is the Queen of 'Faerie' (Fairyland), not the 'Queen of the fairies'
In more modern tales, Cinderella had a fairy godmother and Tinkerbell was a fairy who was friendly with Peter Pan.
An older word for fairy in this sense is 'fay' - Morgan or Morgana the Fay was a sorceress in the Arthurian legends.
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In the fantasies, "faerie" is a collective word for the fae. I wonder if that use is because Disney ruined the word "fairy" with his depiction of Tinkerbell. That delicate little thing had no relation to the dangerous power of the older Faerie, as witnessed by the story of Tam Lin.
There is one popular urban fantasy series (Kim Harrison's The Hollows/Rachel Morgan) where one of the main characters, a pixie (and don't be fooled, they are quite dangerous), constantly swears using "Tink's" name.
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My views on what Disney has done to several classic European novels and legends would be unprintable.
I don't know the novels you refer to, Birdy, but you are quite correct in saying that the inhabitants of the other worlds are not all sweetness and light,
There is a great scene between Sarah (Jennifer Connolly) and Hoggle in the David Bowie /Jim Henson movie 'Labyrinth'
Sarah - She bit me!
Hoggle - What else did you expect fairies to do?
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Faerie has some similarities with druid, which I just dealt with. Leaving aside the connection both have with magic, both words are often written with an initial capital letter - but not always.
From our vantage point it is easy to imagine that Spenser wrote faerie because that was the olden times version of fairy. But actually it seems he invented that spelling as a more archaic looking version of fairy - which word had been around for a long time before. Fairy had also been used to mean fairyland: "Þe king o fairy", from a 1330 citation in the OED. It seems like Spenser's spelling didn't catch on all that widely for 400 years or so, but it has been much more widely used in the last 20 years or so. Check out the ngram chart (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=faerie&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3#). As others have suggested, many modern fantasy writers have adopted that spelling to get away from the Tinkerbell connotations of fairies.
Anyhow, I'm satisfied that faerie is not a common word. And still less is faery, which is also classed as common. I'll change them to rare.
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Thanks Alan.
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It seems like Spenser's spelling didn't catch on all that widely for 400 years or so, but it has been much more widely used in the last 20 years or so. Check out the ngram chart (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=faerie&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3#). As others have suggested, many modern fantasy writers have adopted that spelling to get away from the Tinkerbell connotations of fairies.
Interesting that in the last decade Ngram (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=faerie%3Aeng_gb_2019%2Cfaerie%3Aeng_us_2019&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfaerie%3Aeng_gb_2019%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cfaerie%3Aeng_us_2019%3B%2Cc0) shows the usage has declined in British English whilst continuing to increase in American English.
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" I didn't think there were a lot of obsolete words classed as common, Les."
You are correct Alan, there are not a lot of obsolete words or archaic spellings that are classed as common & that just makes it all the more frustrating when you do come across one, especially if they just happen to be the last " common " word that you are looking for.
APOTHECARY was the seed word in a recent 10 letter game.
I'm sorry but i can not continue with this post at this time as i have to pop down to my local apothecary to pick up some aspirin for my throbbing headache.
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I wonder how many people read, study, watch, listen to or act in Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' every day.
The apothecary appears in every one of them.
Sorry, while Shakespeare is still around, apothecary is far from obsolete.
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Obviously not me, anyway thanks Mike, you have saved me from wasting Alan's time.
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Having said that, surely there’s a lot of words from Shakespeare’s works that aren’t in the Chi lexicon at all let alone classed as common? I mean it’s like the Bible, probably read by more people regularly and just cause it’s in there doesn’t mean it’s common.
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Ah, you misunderstand me Jacki. This is not about whether the word is 'common' or not (that's for Alan to decide), but rather whether it is 'obsolete' or not. This is much clearer - it most certainly is not obsolete.
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Oh so you mean regularly read or written or used in the present day?
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Yes, still in use today, which I think it is,
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I would like to see an example of its common, everyday use.
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I'm sure that it's not the word that most people would use if they wanted a packet of paracetamol to cure their hangover. They'd go to the chemist, the pharmacy or the drugstore.
However, as the name of a particular trade I think it ranks with chandler,cooper, wainwrightand fletcher - trades which were once common and which should be familiar to our 'educated native speakers'.
Common it may not be, but obsolete it certainly isn't.
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I'm with Mike on this one. In my mind, 'common' in the Chi sense means commonly understood by a well-read person, not necessarily just common in everyday speech. I accept the downgrading of many words, given Alan's very careful analysis, but I do regret their passing.
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On this subject, I'm going to, as a result of missing a rosette in yesterday's challenge game, add WHERETO to the list of HERETO and THERETO for future games (though I'm sure my aging brain will probably forget this by the time its called upon)...
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Thanks for the feedback on apothecary.
The non well educated & non well read individuals like me need all the help that we can get.
While i concede that apothecary may not be obsolete, i maintain that the term is definitely dated & would be unfamiliar to many, so i would appreciate hearing Alan's opinion regarding its current common classification.
The definition in my compact Macquarie is ; ( archaic ) chemist, pharmacist.
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I would like to see an example of its common, everyday use.
Although the subject line of this topic is faerie, Les's challenge relates to the word apothecary.
In Smith Street, Fitzroy - 9 minutes drive away from where I sit according to Google Maps - is The Melbourne Apothecary, a naturopathic practitioner. Also in nearby suburbs are The Holistic Apothecary in South Yarra; Homeopathy Clinic Melbourne, The Family Apothecary in Kew; Thornbury Apothecary, a reiki therapist; and several others, including the Animal Apothecary, pet supply store.
Presumably the staff at these establishments use the word every day.
In the News on the Web corpus there are 6 articles using the word from the first 7 days of this month - almost every day!
Forbes, 7 September:
Contained in a luxurious refillable, reusable and recyclable apothecary bottle, this pure and naked skin elixir held the promise of youth in a bottle.
Shemazing (Ireland), 6 September:
This almost perfectly preserved old time apothecary is one of Cork city’s most unique wine and dining experiences. Offering a range of different wines are available from behind the counter, along with a selection of medicines, look around their glass cabinets and investigate the medicines, cosmetics, and apothecary accoutrements from the past 120 years.
Forbes, 5 September:
Beauty brands include Inika Organic, Lola's Apothecary, Green Planet Beauty, Juni Cosmetics, as well as a strong selection of health and wellbeing products, such as kombucha, candles, and essential oils.
New York Times, 3 September:
And before they left, they were invited to pick one of the many drawers of a custom apothecary cabinet on the main floor, each filled with a playful parting gift.
Gizmodo, 1 September:
A new fantasy series begins in this tale of an apothecary apprentice who's working to cure a devastating plague the land's rulers have chosen to ignore.
bdnews24 (Bangladesh), 1 September:
But the explosion of tidy cubbies and drawers that causes an ultramodern kitchen to resemble the study of a 19th-century apothecary is not merely the result of refrigerators becoming cabinets. Cabinets, too, are becoming refrigerators.
Most dictionaries identify apothecary as dated, historic, archaic, etc. The one exception I spotted is the American Heritage online dictionary, which has no such comments, for some reason. I think we could say that the word has a definite old time feel about it. Perhaps the alternative medicine crowd are drawn to the word because they have little regard for the achievements of medical science over the last few centuries.
At any rate, the word is still used fairly often in various contexts: historical fiction and fantasy, products such as apothecary jars and cabinets, new age type businesses. In the many instances where news stories use the word, I didn't see any who felt the need to explain to readers what it meant, so I assume the word is pretty widely known. I'm leaving it as a common word.
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Seems reasonable to me Alan.
I don’t use it in normal conversation, but as someone who plays the game looking purely for the seed word in each game, I did find it reasonably easily, compared to many other words.
I do know reasonably often, as I am sure others do, I look at the combination of letters, and the word jumps out at me as the only possible solution. This was in fact one of those times.
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Thanks for the thorough explanation, Alan.
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Hear hear.
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I'm not sure that this little object was labeled an apothecary jar, but it certainly fits the concept. It was a promotional gift to doctors from a major pharmaceutical company here in the U.S.A. some years ago.