Thursday words: quethe + fantod
Feb. 16th, 2017 07:48 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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1word1daySorry for missing last week -- spent the day in bed with the flu. (Yanno, that'd be a good word to run sometime: influenza.) So today, two words as a make-up:
quethe (KWEETH) - v., to say or declare.
Obsolete and almost completely forgotten except in the past tense, quoth. Yes, quoth does have a present tense form, and future, and all the usual perfects. The word goes back to Old English cweþan, which might make you think that quethe is pronounced with a thorn on the end, but IPA indicates an eth -- go figure. Note also the related word bequeath, which has the past tense bequeathed rather than bequoth, for it is another formerly strong English verb that has, alas, turned regular.
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"
fantod (FAN-tod) - n., a state of irritability and tension, the fidgets; an emotional outburst, a fit.
Not, alas, a small fantastic creature that can be stuffed and placed in a glass bell, as those of us who grew up on Edward Gorey might think (full book: see page 11). This is sometimes had in the plural, as in the fantods. First appeared in the late 1830s of unknown origin, though clearly somehow related to fantasy, possibly by being combined with fatigue.
As the narrator's fantods get worse, the raven continues perching on the bust of Pallas.
---L.
quethe (KWEETH) - v., to say or declare.
Obsolete and almost completely forgotten except in the past tense, quoth. Yes, quoth does have a present tense form, and future, and all the usual perfects. The word goes back to Old English cweþan, which might make you think that quethe is pronounced with a thorn on the end, but IPA indicates an eth -- go figure. Note also the related word bequeath, which has the past tense bequeathed rather than bequoth, for it is another formerly strong English verb that has, alas, turned regular.
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"
fantod (FAN-tod) - n., a state of irritability and tension, the fidgets; an emotional outburst, a fit.
Not, alas, a small fantastic creature that can be stuffed and placed in a glass bell, as those of us who grew up on Edward Gorey might think (full book: see page 11). This is sometimes had in the plural, as in the fantods. First appeared in the late 1830s of unknown origin, though clearly somehow related to fantasy, possibly by being combined with fatigue.
As the narrator's fantods get worse, the raven continues perching on the bust of Pallas.
---L.
