Over time, languages change. Especially words that take on meaning in a cultural context and are usually relevant to a period in time. As trends change and time goes on, words fall out of favour. You may remember for example, back in the 1980’s when “freaky” was a popular word for all things “cool” which was from the 70’s. Remember that brief but oh so painful period in the early 1980’s when it was all Valley Girls lingo from California? Like “grody to the max” or “gag me with a spoon”?
So in light of all that, we found some old English words that maybe we should bring back today.
Fudgel (v): Basically, this means pretending to work when we’re really not doing any work at all…like maybe when we’re on video meeting calls…playing solitaire and no one can see us?
Quomodocunquize (v): That’s a tongue twister! Simply put, it means to make money any way that you can. Side hustle anyone? It came from a difficult economic time during the Great Depression.
Zwodder (n): Means a drowsy and stupid state of body or mind…perhaps a word that described how many of us felt during the pandemic lockdowns?
Ergophobia (N): A morbid fear of returning to work…that’s going to be familiar to many!
Spuddle (v): To work tirelessly without achieving anything of worth or putting in a great deal of effort and achieving very little…I’m sure we’ve all experienced projects like that. What a spuddle that project was!
Jargogle: It means to confuse or jumble words…maybe after a long day or when the world seems a tad confusing?
Uhtceare (v): A lot of folks did this during the pandemic and we still do…basically, this is lying awake worrying before dawn. (pro: oot-key-are-a)
Ultracrepidarian (n): You know, those co-workers who find every chance to share their opinion on things they know nothing about. Ah, so much social media!
Perhaps in a hundred years we’ll have common words today that future generations will laugh about or try to bring back to life.
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Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay
