Vivify your prose with disclaimed verbal nonpareils

Dust off some of these vanishing locutions to regale and enchant your kith and kin

The Global Language Monitor recently released its Top Words of the Decade (2000-2009), which include the top-ranked global warming (actually that’s two words; curiously, climate change was the top phrase), slumdog and misunderestimate.

The list of now-ubiquitous terms prompted a bit of nostalgia (which, by the way, is not an affliction of the nostrils). What about all those wonderful words that have fallen into disuse?

Here, then, is a potpourri, a mélange, a hodgepodge, a salmagundi, a pastiche of words whose use might be called a dearth or paucity, in some cases whose utilization has reached a nadir.

One of my favorites is fortnight, meaning a period of two weeks, derived from 14 nights. The only high-profile use of “fortnight” in my memory was in “So I Married an Axe Murderer” (Mike Myers playing both father Stuart and son Charlie, below):

Stuart: Oh, I hated the Colonel with his wee, beady eyes, and that smug look on his face. “Oh, you’re gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!”