Books by Jeffrey Kacirk
Informal English: Puncture Ladies, Egg Harbors, Mississippi Marbles, and Other Curious Words and Phrases of North America
Gleaned from antiquated dictionaries, dialect glossaries, studies of folklore, nautical lexicons, historical writings, letters, novels, and miscellaneous sources, Informal English offers a captivating treasure trove of linguistic oddities that will not only entertain but also shed light on America's colloquial past. Among the gems are:
Surface-coal: cow dung, widely used for fuel in Texas
Bone-orchard: in the Southwest slang for a cemetery
Chawswizzled: "confounded" in Nebraskan idiom. "I'll be chawswizzled!"
Leather-ears: to Cape Cod inhabitants, a person of slow comprehension
Puncture lady: a southwestern expression for a woman who prefers to sit on the sidelines at a dance and gossip rather than dance, often puncturing someone's reputation
Whether the entries are unexpected twists on familiar-sounding expressions or based on curious old customs, this wide-ranging assortment of vernacular Americanisms will amaze and amuse even the most hard-boiled curmudgeon.
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Long Lost Insults: Forgotten English III, Knowledge Cards™
by Jeffrey Kacirk, Pomegranate
Amusing to our modern ear, the definitions of these 48 forgotten words are cause for laughter--at someone else's expense. Each Knowledge Card introduces an antiquated insult and its dusty definition, complete with descriptions of the origins of the insult and some examples of usage. Describe your nosy neighbor who is a spatherdab (chatterer, gossip, or scandle-monger) or a strange officemate who is a gongoozler (idle person who stands staring for prolonged periods at anything out of the ordinary) with glee!
Jeffrey Kacirk, author of the books Forgotten English (William Morrow, 1997) and the Word Museum (Simon and Schuster, 2000), has compiled these hilarious verbal affronts that will keep you readily armed with vocal indignities from as far back as the mid-sixteenth century. Don't miss his other Forgotten English Knowledge Card Decks published by Pomegranate.
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