faerie

[birdy]

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.

[mkenuk]

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?

[Alan W]

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. 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.

[les303]

Thanks Alan.

[TRex]

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. 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 shows the usage has declined in British English whilst continuing to increase in American English.

[les303]

" 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.

[mkenuk]

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.

[les303]

Obviously not me, anyway thanks Mike, you have saved me from wasting Alan's time.

[Jacki]

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.

[mkenuk]

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.

[Jacki]

Oh so you mean regularly read or written or used in the present day?

[mkenuk]

Yes, still in use today, which I think it is,

[les303]

I would like to see an example of its common, everyday use.

[mkenuk]

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.

[Roddles]

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.