# Post your favourite old fashioned unusual words... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 28, 2004, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588 "2004-02-28T05:58:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cybersnark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@cybersnark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cybersnark)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/41 "2004-02-29T22:22:41Z")
swive ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/42 "2004-02-29T23:29:36Z")
Whilst. No, it does not mean the same as “while”, and I’m fed up people telling me that it does. It is a perfectly good word and we can do without losing it. I once asked to take a ‘whilst’ out of some documentation I’d written because “there’s no such word or it’s some Scottish only word”. I declined, told them to look it up. And we’ll have all the other words that end in ~st while we’re about it. They are all gems. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/43 "2004-02-29T23:59:58Z")
heinie (pronounced HI-nee) (sp?) = buttocks ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/44 "2004-03-01T00:21:35Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > Whilst. > > No, it does not mean the same as “while”, and I’m fed up people telling me that it does. It is a perfectly good word and we can do without losing it. I once asked to take a ‘whilst’ out of some documentation I’d written because “there’s no such word or it’s some Scottish only word”. I declined, told them to look it up. > > And we’ll have all the other words that end in ~st while we’re about it. They are all gems. Well, since you asked, from [m-w.com](http://m-w.com): Main Entry: whilst Pronunciation: 'hwI(&)lst, 'wI(&)lst Function: conjunction Etymology: Middle English whilest, alteration of whiles chiefly British : WHILE You might want to send them a note. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/45 "2004-03-01T01:07:00Z")
> [@Blonde](#): > > From Texas: > > stupnagle (idiot) Wow! I was just thinking about my dad’s use of that when I was a kid, in the 1950’s in Virginia. It comes from a radio show “Col. Stoopnagle and Budd” in the 1930’s. Thanks for the memories. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/46 "2004-03-01T01:39:57Z")
galumphing- Every time i see my uncle, I think of this word. He just…galumphs through the house. lothario- great word. Never hear it anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/47 "2004-03-01T01:48:21Z")
_Prankqueen_. It meant “slut,” back when “slut” still meant “sloppy housekeeper.” ---
**Author:** ![PastAllReason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@PastAllReason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastAllReason)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/48 "2004-03-01T03:02:06Z")
> [@Antiochus](#): > > Speaking of that, some of you might enjoy a novel called **The Alienist**. I **did** enjoy The Alienist. I’ve never read any of Caleb Carr’s other books, although I have a futuristic one in my to-be-read-someday-if-i-get-around-to-it stack. One word I’ve like the sound of, from watching and reading Rumpole of the Bailey, [peruke](http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=peruke&x=11&y=12). ---
**Author:** ![Molson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Molson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molson)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/49 "2004-03-01T03:09:28Z")
Heaven forfend ! - commonly said by the stuffy professor in movies and sitcoms. postprandial peripitation - a walk after a meal periptery - the “zone of disturbance” around a moving car or airplane “I love the feel of my hair in the peripery” range the coast - sail parallel to the coast cronk - to make the sound of a raven ---
**Author:** ![Lando\_Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f17d59/32.png) [@Lando\_Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lando_Griffin)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/50 "2004-03-01T03:16:21Z")
Have we forgotten **23-skidoo**? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/51 "2004-03-01T03:16:41Z")
Some of the words my family has always used; chesterfield - for couch or sofa dressing - for stuffing (like in a turkey) I actually use most of the words already mentioned in this thread. I’ve made it a hobby to collect old-fashioned words and phrases. One of the best sources for this, surprisingly enough, are the really old “Archie” comics that use the slang of the time. 23-skiddoo, baby. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/52 "2004-03-01T04:17:17Z")
> [@](#): > > I learned ‘dreckly’ from my grandmother. The best I can figure, the word is an alteration in both pronunciation and meaning (eventually vs. immediately) of ‘directly’: I worked for a chain of plant nursery stores, years ago, that was very ethical in their procurement process. Except that each winter, one of the buyers would go down to Florida and make a massive purchase of large houseplants that had obviously been forced and most of which were doomed to die when they were set up in all the forced-air heated Michigan homes to which they would be sold. Since they were shipped directly to each store rather than being staged from the warehouse, my Jewish boss used to refer to them as being “shipped drek from Florida.” ( **Drek** being Yiddish for shit.) I actually opened this thread with the intention of contributing my Hoosier Mom’s “cattywampus,” but I see that has been handled. My Mom used the word to mean _both_ diagonally _and_ askew. The development of the word seems to have been cater-corner » catty-cornered/kitty-cornered » cattywampus/kittywampus. (To indicated something gone awry, my Father in Law used _dillywack_.) ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/53 "2004-03-01T14:43:25Z")
I’d always heard that originated because of the cross-winds at 23rd and Broadway in NY, from the Flatiron Building; that lotharios would hang around to see ladies’ skirts blow up in the air. But . . . I read the memoirs of a kid in the 1880s who said that saying “23” in class would promote hysteria; and I have a record from c1908 with the lyrics “I just tell him ‘23,’” so I wonder when and wherefore it did originate? ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/54 "2004-03-01T15:51:03Z")
I read more than I talk, and I’m fond of 19th century (or 19th century-style) novels. So sometimes when I talk, I get strange looks. I told a friend once I didn’t want **to part brass rags** \* with him, and then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to explain what I meant. (I’d been reading a lot of Patrick O’Brian at the time.) When I’m a little at sea with life, I tell my fiance I’m all **at sixes and sevens** \*\* that day. Either that, or I have the **megrims** \*\*\*. Or the **fantods** \*\*\*\*. \*Fall out with one another. In the days of the spit-and-polish navy of the 1890s to 1914 (and between the wars) two sailors would share brass polishing gear (polish - ‘bluebell’ polish - and rags - more often cotton waste): ‘he puts it on, I polishes it off’. So, if you were no longer sharing ‘brass rags’, you were no longer friends (from [here](http://www.kipling.org.uk/naval1.htm) \*\*not in agreement, confused, in a state of confusion \*\*\* Depression or unhappiness \*\*\*\*A state of nervous irritability; Nervous movements caused by tension ---
**Author:** ![marky33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@marky33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marky33)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/55 "2004-03-01T15:52:47Z")
> [@ColonelDax](#): > > One of my grandmothers always referred to my blue jeans as dungarees, which amused me. The word is common in Britain, though it means trousers with a top flop that buckles on the chest area – what are they called in America? ---
**Author:** ![marky33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@marky33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marky33)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/56 "2004-03-01T16:01:56Z")
Oh, and: Perambulator, the word from which pram (baby carriage) derives. The English wording on Hong Kong buses actually uses this word (perambulator) when asking passengers to make room for mothers - the only time I have seen it used. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/57 "2004-03-01T16:25:09Z")
My grandmother, who was raised and lived all her life in Centre County, Pennsylvania, used both “redd up”, and “davenport”. Are these locutions geographical? ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/58 "2004-03-01T16:37:53Z")
> [@marky33](#): > > The word is common in Britain, though it means trousers with a top flop that buckles on the chest area – what are they called in America? They’re called coveralls, or overalls, depending on where you live. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/59 "2004-03-01T16:54:52Z")
Whilst Funk Fortnight ( yeah, verily.) Smite Bastian Epiphany. It took me five dictionaries to find that one in it…and not for the religious holiday connonation. myomancy Foretelling the future by the movements of mice. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588/60 "2004-03-01T23:00:40Z")
Here’ 🙂 s some delightful 19th century slang I want to revive: BLATHERSKITE: an excessively wordy person PLUGUGLY: a menacing criminal (see “Gangs of New York”) BALDERDASH: expression of disbelief HUMBUG!:(see above) WHIPPERSNAPPER: a young, credulous person [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favourite-old-fashioned-unusual-words/231588.md?page=4)