Dusting Off Old Words, and Using Them Again

This week’s blog has to do with words, yes, words, the very stuff of writing.  After all, we writers use words to paint pictures in their readers’ minds. I got the idea when I posted on Facebook my love of taking an old word down out of the mental attic, dusting it off, and using it.   The word in question was personable. It had been years, if not decades since I had heard someone use the word, but it seemed to be a very apt descriptor for the cashier who had waited on us at the supermarket last week.  Yes, we go shopping. What, did you think we had our groceries delivered? Nat not! That’s a luxury we cannot as yet afford.  

But back to “personable.”  of pleasing personal appearance; handsome or comely; attractive.

having an agreeable or pleasing personality; affable; amiable; sociable.

Christina certainly is that, and that’s how I described her, mostly by her personality.  When it comes to a colorful vocabulary, nobody can beat the people of Shakespeare’s time for colorful insults. Such as “Thou pusillanimous scurvy  lout!” Lout is another good old word that ought to come back into fashion. Without looking it up in my friend dictionary.com, I would guess it to have a similar meaning to oaf.  an awkward, stupid person; clumsy, ill-mannered boor; oaf.  I was right; a lout is similar to an oaf. I don’t know about you, but I pick up the meanings, or at least the connotations of a lot of the words I use from the context in which I find them.  It is only later that I feel compelled to look up the denotative meaning in the dictionary. The denotative meaning is the dictionary meaning of the word. Have you noticed: louts and oafs are almost always male?  What word would you use to describe an awkward or clumsy woman or girl, I wonder.  

A word that came up often in my reading of English Romantic novels, such as those by the Bronte sisters is  biddable, which means willing to do what is asked; obedient; tractable; docile:a biddable child  We don’t see that word much anymore, unless you are talking about playing cards.  Nowadays, a biddable girl is the one most likely to get herself into trouble; good for the story, bad for the girl.  The word is much more likely to come up in the conversation of elder female relatives of the young girl in question, than in anyone else’s conversation.  I can’t see two gentlemen describing a young lady as biddable, can you? A lout would probably nudge his fellow lout and wink feverishly, “She’s very biddable, and very personable too, don’t you think?  Didn’t raise the slightest objection to my suggestion. But did it most biddably..” And now the poor girl is bundled off to a convent somewhere, to spend the rest of her days in seclusion, the subject of a scurrilous scandal.

Scurrilous, another good word we hardly hear anymore.  It means grossly or obscenely abusive:

a scurrilous attack on the mayor.

characterized by or using low buffoonery; coarsely jocular or derisive:

a scurrilous jest.

With almost daily scandals in use by the US Clown-in-Chief, you’d think we’d hear or see it more often.  

I hope you’ll join me in this fun pastime.  Look to this space for more on my writing.