A to Z of Words You Will Never Hear Again

A few will be aware I have been known to speak on various subjects over the years. Fundamentally these all revolve around my favourite subject of etymology. Have always enjoyed bringing this fascinating subject to others. It’s not for me to say whether the audiences have, although many have asked me to return.

Thought it might be worthwhile sharing a snippet or two from these etymological presentations, continuing with A to Z of Words You Will Never Hear Again. With over a million words in the full version of the Oxford English Dictionary and more being added all the time, you would think there are many we never use or ever even hear. You would be right but I wonder if you know how right? Of those million words the average person uses perhaps 20,000 when writing and only about 5,000 in everyday speech. So what happened to the others? Well here are a selection and these are not even among the more obscure. There is a PowerPoint presentation to accompany this talk if required.

Azygous - generally only used in an organic sense where the meaning is 'single, not existing in pairs'. It is taken from the Greek azugos meaning ‘unmarried’ and takes a ‘without’ and zygon ‘yoke’ ie that used to tether two draught animals together.

Adnyamathanhan, although we have no tips on how to bring this native language of southern Australia into general conversation.

C is for celeripedean, surely one of the easiest words in this list to use as it simply means ‘fleet of foot’. Parts of the body are always good to learn, but how many of you will have heard of the coracoid, while few will know it is a short projection from the shoulder blade which has no useful function today. To complete the threesome of easy-to-use words beginning with C, the easiest of all to fit in – at least for him. So when she asks “Does my ass look big in this?”, the reply should be “You are positively callipygian” which refers to ‘a person with a shapely ass”.

V is for verjuice, a less useful word than in times past as it describes the acidic juice of crab apples. Of far more use if verbivore, particularly for those reading this, as it means ‘someone who devours words’, and also vesthibitionism, describing a woman who delights in showing off her undergarments.

Z is for znees - a synonym for 'frost'. And despite it being known in several places there seems to be no clear etymology.

If you think you know someone who would like to hear me speak on this subject, drop me a line.