6 | The Writer • January 2020
BOOKISH
New year, old words
Fresh into a new year – and a new
decade to boot – it’s always good to
look back at years past and how times
have changed. These two bite-size
books offer a blast from the linguistic
past for word lovers.
The Little Book of Lost Words: Colly-
wobbles, Snollygosters, and 86 Other
Surprisingly Useful Terms Worth
Resurrecting
By Joe Gillard
How is it that
long-dead fashion
trends manage to
come back in
style but old-fash-
ioned words rarely
do? Why wouldn’t
a population want
to revive words
like humgruffin, flapdoodle, or ramfee-
zled? Why merely be content with say-
ing a co-worker “sucks up” to upper
management when we could say he
honeyfuggles them? Why call Janet
from accounting a gossip when you
could call her a quidnunc? Why hashtag
the #SundayScaries when you could be
tweeting about your #Sonntagsleerung,
a German word from the early 20th
century that apparently means the
exact same thing?
All of these words are lovingly
brought back from the linguistic dead
in Joe Gillard’s The Little Book of Lost
Words: Collywobbles, Snollygosters,
and 86 Other Surprisingly Useful
Terms Worth Resurrecting. Each word
is paired with a definition, a witty sam-
ple sentence, and an illustrative histor-
ical painting.
“There are very few treasures that
we can dig out of the ground, dust off,
and put into use as if they were
brand-new,” writes Gillard in the intro-
duction. “Words, of course, are the
exception. The purpose of this book is
to provide you with your very own col-
lection of treasures, ready to be resur-
rected and introduced into conversation
with a delighted audience.”From Skedaddle to Selfie: Words of
the Generations
By Allan MetcalfAllan Metcalf’s
From Skedaddle to
Selfie: Words of
the Generations
takes a light-
hearted linguistic
approach to ana-
lyzing our genera-
tional divides. The
book starts with the jargon of the Amer-
ican Revolution and continues with the
language of choice for the post-Millen-
nial crowd.
“Metcalf’s history skedaddles and jit-
terbugs quite swiftly through the 20th-
century generations, pausing briefly to
explain ‘babysitters’ and ‘necking and
petting’ and ‘sexy,’ the great transforma-
tion of the word ‘gay’ and the meaning
of the shift from ‘hi’ to ‘hey.’ Generation
Y, fittingly, is generation abbrev: YOLO,
LOL, FOMO are all hashtagged here,”
writes The Guardian.
Metcalf is no stranger to language
history: In 2010, he wrote an entire book
on the word “OK” (OK: The Improbable
Story of America’s Greatest Word).
“To read his account, in which each
term gets a brief commentary on how a
particular generation characteristically
invented it or repurposed an older one,
is to be persuaded that he has heard
the echoes of America’s past and pres-
ent,” says the Baltimore Sun of Met-
calf’s latest book.Gearing up to pen your
2020 writing resolutions?
Here’s a quick tip: Focus on
concrete goals (I will write
for X minutes on Monday,
Wednesday, and Saturday)
versus abstract ones (I will
write every day). Choose at
least five goals that you
will actively work toward
over the next 12 months: I will write for ___
minutes every week.
I will write at least ___
words in each writing
session.
I will receive ___
rejections each month.
I will query ___ agents
each month.
I will read ___ writing
books this year.
I will read ___ books in
my genre this year.
I will attend ___ events
for writers this year.
I will plan ___ writing
retreats this year.
I will apply to ___
residencies, fellowships,
contests, or awards this
year.
I will revise ____ pages
each week.
I will read ____ new
literary journals this year.
I will publish blog posts
(or social posts) ____
times per week.
I will spend ____ hours
looking for new clients or
markets each month.WRITING PROMPT