43. Bodgery — word-coiners (16th century)
The history of English contains thousands of words that never made it — coinages invented by individual writers that simply didn’t catch on. There is just a single instance of bodgery recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. It is from the playwright Thomas Nashe, who used it in 1599. It means ‘bungling, botched work’.
Some 16th-century poets and playwrights seem almost to have coined words for a living. Nashe was second only to Shakespeare in the number of words whose first recorded use is found in his writing — nearly 800 — and several did become a permanent part of the language, such as conundrum, grandiloquent, multifarious and balderdash. Nashe also coined a word which would one day receive new life in science fiction: earthling.
But, like Shakespeare, quite a few of his coinages evidently didn’t appeal. Either they were never used by anyone else, as far as we know, or they had a brief flurry of usage before being quietly dropped. Probably no tears would ever be shed over the loss of collachrymate (‘accompanied by weeping’) or baggagery (‘worthless rabble’). But I rather regret that bodgery disappeared (though bodge and bodger are still heard in some dialects), along with tongueman (‘good speaker’) and chatmate (‘gossip’).
The list of words that never made it has a surreal quality. From Philip Sidney we have disinvite, hang-worthy, rageful and triflingness. From Edmund Spenser, disadventurous, jolliment, schoolery and adviceful. From John Marston, cockall (‘perfection’), bespirtle (‘to spot with vice’), fubbery (‘cheating’) and glibbery (‘slippery’) — creations Lewis Carroll would have been proud of. Sometimes it’s impossible to say why one word stayed and another didn’t. Why did Spenser’s tuneful catch on but his gazeful did not?
However, you can never tell what will happen. Musicry was coined by John Marston, and nobody used it after him — until 1961, when a writer revived it for a book on the arts. Nashe’s chatmate is currently the only instance of its use in the Oxford English Dictionary. But that will soon change, for in the world of chatrooms, social networking and internet dating, what do we find? Chatmates. There’s hope for bodgery yet.
44. Undeaf — a word from Shakespeare (16th century)
In Shakespeare’s Richard II, there’s a scene in which Richard’s uncle, John of Gaunt, expresses the hope that the king will listen to his dying words of advice about ruling more wisely. He wouldn’t listen to me while I was alive, he says, but ‘My death’s sad tale may yet undeaf his ear’ (II.i.16).
Undeaf. It’s one of those words which must be a genuine Shakespearean coinage. There are over 2,000 words in Shakespeare where the Oxford English Dictionary says he is the first recorded user. That doesn’t mean to say he invented all of them. In many cases, he just happened to be the first person we know of to write an already existing word down on a page. The English of his time used an oath God’s blood — usually shortened to ’sblood. The first recorded use is in the first part of Henry IV. But people would have been swearing like that for years.
Undeaf is different. The man and woman in the street wouldn’t have said that. Nor would they since. It’s a vivid way of expressing the idea that Richard needs to listen. Shakespeare could have written ‘My death’s sad tale may open yet his ear’. Undeaf has more dramatic impact. Why? Because it’s impossible. If you’re deaf, you can’t suddenly become undeaf. Deep down, John of Gaunt knows that there’s nothing he can say that will change the king’s behaviour.
Now if this were an isolated case, it wouldn’t deserve a chapter in a wordbook. But it’s by no means alone. Shakespeare loves to play with language in this way. He often takes a word and reverses its meaning by adding a prefix like un-, even if the action is strictly speaking impossible. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth calls on the spirits to unsex her. Later in the same play, Malcolm affirms he is going to unspeak what he has said. In Coriolanus, the people are asked to unshout their earlier shouting.
If we go counting, we’ll find 314 instances in the Oxford English Dictionary where Shakespeare is the first citation for an un- usage. Most of them are adjectives, such as uncomfortable and uneducated, but there are no fewer than sixty-two cases where the prefix has been added to an already existing verb. Some of them, such as unlock, untie and unbend, have become a routine part of the language. But undeaf and several others have not.
What Shakespeare does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow. And indeed, it has become a routine feature of creative English expression to make new words by adding a prefix such as un-. The language seems to be returning to its Germanic roots, for coinages with un- were very common in Old English, and words like unfriend (§36, 99) have their parallels in unwine (‘enemy’, literally un + wine, pronounced ‘wee-nuh’, ‘friend’). In recent times we have had hundreds of coinages, such as uncool, unfunny, ungimmicky, unsorry, untouristy, untrendy, un-with-it and unyoung. Unyoung? ‘Why not just say old?’ you might ask. But there’s a difference. Many senior citizens refuse to accept that they are old, though they might reluctantly agree that they are unyoung.
45. Skunk — an early Americanism (17th century)
In 1585, Thomas Hariot travelled with Sir Walter Raleigh in his attempt to establish a colony on Roanoke Island in Virginia. When he returned to England, he wrote A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, in which he gives a great deal of information about the place and the people. He identifies ‘two kinds of small beasts greater than conies [rabbits] which are very good meat’, naming them saquenuckot and maquowoc.
People have puzzled over which animals these must have been. Were they raccoons, opossums, muskrats… or even skunks? The first clear use of the name skunk doesn’t turn up until 1634, in another account of early America. The Oxford English Dictionary derives it from a different Indian language from the one spoken in Roanoke. But saquenuckot certainly looks as if it might be the origin of skunk.
Skunk is an early Americanism. It was one of dozens of words that were borrowed from the Algonquian languages in the early 1600s. Many of them didn’t last. Nobody today (except possibly in some dialects) talks about a sagamore (‘chief’) or a pocosin (‘swamp’). But several words did survive, such as caribou, moccasin, moose, opossum, persimmon, powwow, tomahawk, totem and wigwam. Today there are hundreds of words that distinguish American from British English (§58).
