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Endangered Words and Phrases
towards
perhaps skilful realise traveller fitted have got sprang disc fortnight sank ageing kilometre mediaeval amoeba paediatrics bloke dived biscuit favourite colour
What are you talking about Nigel? I might spell some of them differently, but I use 'em all the time -- except for bloke, fortnight, and have got.
Bloke and Fortnight are going strong over here. So the list doesn't mean anything then!
Why do you need a single word to refer to two weeks? There's no equivalent for three weeks!
I guess when you've gone your whole life without needing such a term, it just seems superfluous.
>>Why do you need a single word to refer to two weeks? There's no equivalent for three weeks!<<
Because it's simpler and the notion is used regularly enough to merit it.
Yes, I've never seen "fortnight" except for in British texts and possibly old American ones. It's not used here.
Fortnight is commonly used in the UK.....eg: "we have a fortnight's holiday in August". It's derived from the Old English for fourteen nights.......ie: two weeks.
I honestly can't agree that those words on Nigel's list have passed their sell-by date. Maybe we should compose a list of words that have truly passed into oblivion......words that are no longer used these days or have radically changed their meaning. Shakespeare / Samuel Pepys et al used words that now have totally different meanings from those current in their time. eg Pepys would say: "It was a brave morning as I strolled through St James' Park" meaning it was bloody freezing (bloody was not considered an oath in his day......nor words describing bodily functions...he used them regularly before they became "indelicate" with the advent of Victorian prudishness). He used the word "merry" to mean irritated and uncomfortable, like when he stayed the night in an inn at Salisbury and the fleas in his mattress made him "merry all the night long"! It's unlikely that such a situation today would make anyone "merry"...unless of course, we had supped a great deal of Bristol Milk, which to Pepys simply meant a sweet sherry. According to Pepys, a genius was an inbred person. A jole was a particular cut of fish; a doxy was a prostitute; a crazy was an infirm person; a mystery was a craft, an artistic ability or a trade; a whisk was a woman's handkerchief; to school someone was to scold them; a pleasant was a comic person, a comedian; passionate meant pathetic as well as provoking compassion; a nursery was a training school for actors; to gossip was to act as a godparent; effeminancy meant the love of women!; dialect was ocal jargon...so not much change there over 350 years.....
Well, I am relieved. I was thinking more of spelling changes, but if "bloke" and "fortnight" aren't used in America it seems they're younger expressions than I thought. I'd have thought fortnight came from fourteen nights, so thought it would have been well known by the time America became independent.
Thanks, Guest, but wouldn't it be "airplane" rather than "aeroplane" in America? Or is aeroplane used sometimes?
"Aeroplane" isn't used in America. "Fortnight" probably was used at one point but dropped out of popular usage.
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