Unfortunately, Susie fell to the wayside over the summer in favour of other holiday reads. But we’re back with the best of June and July, at the beginning of September …
June
6th – SNOUTFAIR – the 1600s version of ‘fit’ or ‘attractive’, though it doesn’t sound it!
8th – NEWSPEAK – Dent draws a sly connection between Orwell’s censored language and Trump’s “fake news”/”alternative facts”.
10th – THEIST – ‘believer’, but its secondary meaning is far better. Apparently, Percy Bysshe Shelley liked to refer to himself by this moniker, with the intended sense of ‘a tea-drinking addict’. In this context, I am most certainly not an atheist!
13th – CLATTERFART – a serious gossip.
17th – BUMF – short for ‘bumfodder’; loo roll.
24th – CHOREOMANIA – an uncontrollable urge to dance. It is thought this phenomenon was responsible for the so-called ‘dancing plagues’ of the Medieval period. Clare Testoni discusses the connection between these and the tale of The Pied Piper in her brilliant podcast, Singing Bones.
30th – SCONE – must admit I was a little grumpy with Susie after this one. She graciously refuses to come down on either side of the argument, stating it’s ‘all a matter of taste’. According to the OED, both pronunciation variations are correct …
July
1st – CWTCH – I lived in Wales for a few years and this was one of my favourites. Mostly used to mean a cuddle but it can also be a safe, cosy place.
12th – LACKADAISICAL – apathetic, without motivation, careless.
17th – FIRGUN – the exact opposite of ‘Schadenfreude’. A recent Hebrew word meaning to find joy in another’s success. Dent quotes another author who aptly describes it as ‘the art of tooting someone else’s horn’.
24th – ZEPHYR – a gentle breeze. Named after Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind.
31st – PETRICHOR – the smell of rain, specifically falling on dry earth. I think ‘apricity’ has some competition.
Bookishly Abroad 