Word Power

 We all know I adore magazines.  At one point in my life, our family subscribed to six magazines.  [Time, Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, Smithsonian, Real Simple, and Texas Monthly]  Can you imagine how many pieces of 'junk mail' landed in our mailbox each week?  I haven't been able to subscribe to ANY magazines since 2010.  I reasoned as long as we had multiple addresses in a year, the magazines would just never catch up with us.  [Turns out I was right.  We actually had a $17 medical bill which never caught up with us, and even the bill collector it was turned over to never found us.  We only found out about the bill when we had a credit report run!]  In the eleven years we traveled around the country, glossy magazines have bitten the dust just like daily newspapers.  Nowadays, most people read magazines on-line.  

Last year, settled into Brooklyn, we got a birthday subscription to The New Yorker which has been a real joy.  In Sun City my magazines are bought used for a quarter apiece.  Since I'm not picky, my $.25 magazines have included but not been limited to fifteen year old Arizona Highways to ten year old Smithsonian Magazines to Cook's Illustrated to last month's Good Housekeeping, which incidentally was first published in May of 1885.  Since I've been living in old people purgatory (Sun City), I've realized elderly people still 'save magazines' some of which, fortunately for me, wind up in thrift stores.  

When I was twelve, I used to collect old paper and re-sell it.  No, I was not a young entrepreneur, my collection efforts were a fundraiser for my youth church group to afford a trip to the newly opened Six Flags Over Texas in Dallas.   We were motivated!  Our group scoured neighborhoods, accompanied by my faithful father and his pick up truck, knocking on doors and asking for old newspapers or magazines.  Since the paper people paid by the pound, finding someone who saved magazines and was willing to part with them was considered a bonanza find.

My first magazine subscription was Reader's Digest.  I started reading it when I was still in elementary school.  The abridged book at the end of each magazine propelled me into adult books.  That magazine led me into a subscription to Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and from there the leap into checking out full length adult books at the library.  My mother refused all pleas for toys, candy, soft drinks, cookies or other junk foods, but she could reliably be wheedled into book purchases and magazine subscriptions.  I was reading my own subscription to Time Magazine cover to cover by the time of was 12.

My favorite section of Reader's Digest was "Word Power".  It was only two pages:  The first page was about 20 vocabulary words each followed by four definitions.  I picked what I thought was the correct definition for each word.  Then, I turned the page where each word was repeated followed by the correct definition.  I thought it was fun to see how many I could correctly define.  The words were usually organized around a theme.  I got better and better at picking the right definition for each word.  Of course, my accuracy improved because I was now reading during most of my free time.  Nothing improves your vocabulary like reading.  It was my favorite activity as a child.  I learned to 'go away' while reading.  It was a way of getting privacy while living in an 1100 square foot house with three other people.  Nowadays, it's rare when I don't get 20 for 20 on "Word Power".

That is until I picked up the May, 2017 magazine....  What a shock to discover out of fifteen words, I was completely unsure of the definitions of eleven of them!  Was it early (ok - not early, but not senile - yet) dementia?  Were the words newfangled slang?  Nope.  They were words taken from the writings of Charles Dickens, arguably the most famous and certainly the most popular English writer of the 19th century.  Most of them are now either archaic, obsolete, or just totally vanished.  It just goes to show how words fade from usage and therefore existence.  Here's the list of the words.  See how you do at picking the definitions.  

1)  sawbones - (noun):  (a) doctor; (b) magician (c)  old nag

2)  catawampus - (adj):  (a) fierce; (b) syrupy; (c) deep and dark

3)  jog-trotty - (adj):  (a) monotonous; (b) nervous; (c) backward

4)  spoony - (adj):  (a) spacious; (b)  pun-filled; (c) love-dovey

5)  rantipole - (noun):  (a) battering ram; (b) fishing rod; (c) ill behaved person

6)  gum-tickler - (noun):  (a) funny remark; (b) strong drink; (c) wishbone

7)  stomachic - (noun):  (a) winter coat; (b) tummy medicine; (c) wind up toy

8)  sassigassity - (noun):  (a) fancy clothes; (b) cheeky attitude; (c) gust of hot wind

9)  comfoozled - (adj):  (a) on fire);  (b) pampered; (c) exhausted

10)  mud lark - (noun):  (a) scavenging child; (b) court judge; (c) ancient scribe

11)  plenipotentiary - (noun):  (a) housewife;  (b) diplomatic agent;  (c) bank vault

12)  toadeater - (noun):  (a) fawning person; (b) habitual liar; (c) gourmet

13)  slangular - (adj):  (a) oblique; (b) using street talk; (c) tight around the neck

14)  marplot - (noun):  (a) flower garden; (b) meddler; (c) fruit jam

15)  heeltap - (noun):  (a) Irish dance step; (b) scoundrel; (c) sip of liquor left in a glass

Now, we are going to discover the real word people.  If you want the definitions, well drop me an electronic line, or enjoy yourself by looking them up on the internet, but be warned, at least one of these words was made up by Dickens!   [The four I knew are: (1), (10), (11), (12).]  Is now the time to tell you I'm also enthralled with etymology?