Sirrah

[Jacki]

In Monday's 10 letter REHEARSING game I missed Sirrah - as I have before - because i have never heard of it outside Chihuahua. I vote it gets changed to rare.

[Tom]

Depends on how many old English novels you may have  read. "Wannest" was the other word that stood out to be. Certainly, "wan" we know but I'm not sure how often it would be used (bit like "sirrah"). But, wannest? I just can't imagine anyone ever saying, for instance, "this is the wannest she's been". I would've thought FAR more likely, "she looks so pale and sickly". Certainly, don't think it should be common.

[mkenuk]

I suspect you've forgotten all the Shakespeare you ever studied at school, Jacki.
'Sirrah' as a way for a king, lord, master etc to address an underling is so common in the plays of the immortal bard that I'm surprised it didn't get more hits.

The word that cost me a rosette in the rehearsing game was garnishee, which has since been added to my list of 'Words that are common in Chi that I have never heard of'.
I'm still not sure how to use it in a sentence. The COD defines it as 'a third party who is garnished' which seems to suggest that it can be used of a person. (I had always thought it was a term in cooking], but apparently it is also a legal term used to refer to someone who is served notice to repay a debt.
Doesn't sound like a common word to me, but it did get a few more hits than sirrah

Actually, words that end in -ee seem to be a bit of a grey area in Chi.
In the recent pedometer game, deportee ('one who is deported') was common, but demotee ('one who is demoted') was 'sorry, not known'.
Maybe it's not a 'real' word, but imho it should be!!

[Jacki]

Well I did study Shakespeare Mike but Sirrah still doesn't stick in my memory. Garnishee however is well known to me, probably because I've worked in finance.
And yes I agree it would be pretty hard to use WANNEST very much!

[blackrockrose]

'Garnishee' will be familiar to many current and former payroll officers. An employee's pay can be 'garnisheed' by court order. That is, the paymaster is obliged to regularly deduct a stipulated amount from an employee's pay and remit it to the court (who presumably send it to the creditor). This continues until the debt is fully repaid.

[Ozzyjack]

I was also familiar with Garnishee through my work although I am pretty sure I never came across it in other than a work context.

Of the following words that Shakespeare used, there is only one that I would have thought to use if it came up in Chi:

•   alarum – call to arms.
•   amain – at full speed.
•   arras – tapestry hanging.
•   avaunt – go away.
•   belike – likely.
•   bethink – think about.
•   caitiff – pitiful creature.
•   chid – chided.
•   corse – corpse.
•   cozen – trick.
•   durst – dared.
•   froward – wilful.
•   goodman – the rank below gentleman (a landowner who had to work for a living).
•   murther – murder, a deadly wound.
•   peradventure – perhaps.
•   puissant – powerful.
•   sith – since.
•   tapster – someone who draws ale from the tap at an inn.
•   welkin – sky.
•   withal – as well.

Whether they are common or even accepted in Chi I have no idea but I can remember being amused as a schoolboy that Polonius got stabbed in the arras.

I don't wanna say anything about wannest.

[Morbius]

Chid, corse and sith are all accepted in Chi as rare words.  I think alarum is too.  I can't remember seeing any of the others.

[Jacki]

Surely arras is accepted?

[mkenuk]

I'm fairly sure I've played durst before.

[Dragonman]

I remember Boot from The Perishers using 'Sirrah'....not quite Shakespeare , but knowledge is where you find it 

[rogue_mother]

In Monday's 10 letter REHEARSING game I missed Sirrah - as I have before - because i have never heard of it outside Chihuahua. I vote it gets changed to rare.

We read at least one Shakespeare play every year that I was in high school. One year my friends and I took to calling each other "sirrah" for fun, so i have never had trouble with this word in Chihuahua.

I can affirm that most of the words that Ozzyjack listed are accepted by Chihuahua. I have played them. Peradventure will never appear, however, as it has too many letters. Welkin was previously listed as common, but was reclassified relatively recently.

[Ozzyjack]

Hi R-M,

I only “studied” Shakespeare for the last two years of high school. On one of those years, a classmate was John Bell who may be known to you. For many years he was active in the Nimrod theatre and headed the Bell Shakespeare Company. We were friendly but not close because he wasn’t greatly interested in sport and in those days I was only interested in literature to the extent of getting a good pass in the English exam.  I was a voracious reader but unfortunately they didn’t examine westerns.

You will have guessed my tutor for the list was Google. I omitted all the 3 letter words and the words that are now common with a significantly different meaning. With peradventure, I was perhaps anticipating a 9-by-many puzzle.

[Alan W]

All dictionaries seem to agree that sirrah is obsolete or archaic.

Its strongest claim to warrant being treated as a common word is its frequent use by Shakespeare. And I do mean frequent - he used the word 146 times according to the Open Source Shakespeare site. However from the discussion in this topic, and an earlier discussion of the word, it seems that a few regular player didn't know the word until they encountered it in Chihuahua. Probably not everybody studies Shakespeare during their schooling, and no doubt some of those who did so failed to absorb sirrah into their passive vocabulary.

So, with all due apologies to the Bard, I'll reclassify the word as rare.

[Jacki]

Hooray!!! One of my whinges has made a difference! I loved Shakespeare and as you say Alan, you can read it but not remember everything. Good choice re lapin and sirrah. Rare they are but it's always good to increase our vocabulary.

[Alan W]

During the discussion, Tom queried wannest being classed as common.

It does seem that wan is an adjective that is seldom used in comparative or superlative form. Wanner is already classed as rare in Chi.

It's very hard to find an example of a writer actually using wannest. Most of the search results seem to be wrongly scanned warmest. Here's one real example, from an unfinished 1888 novel called Miss Lou, by Edward Payson Roe:

At these words there was a general smile even on the wannest and most pain-pinched face, for they struck the men as very droll.

Wannest will be rare from now on.