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Gadzooks! Words you need to know!

April 29 2023

Are you tired of listening to other folks using fancy words that make them sound far more sophisticated and intelligent than you? Well, your first mistake is actually listening to the other person.

Remember, the most important rule of conversation is that once you have finished speaking and the other person begins, you are free to think up what you are going to say next. Listening is a bad habit and a distraction. It will give the dangerous impression that you actually care what the other person is saying.

Also, the other person may actually be more sophisticated and intelligent than you. This can be annoying and not good for the old ego. However, do not let this upset you too much as, by the end of this blog, you will be armed with enough fancy words to put them in their place and assert your dominance in the battleground that is modern conversation. These words are so fancy that if they took human form, they would wear frilly shirts, shiny top hats and at least one monocle.

I am going to give you a crash course in archaic words, in the form of a super fun quiz! Archaic words are old fashioned words that no-one uses anymore. That is, no one apart from you!

The arch sound at the beginning is the same as in archaeology. That makes sense as arch comes from the Ancient Greek language and means ‘beginning’. 

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Take the super fun quiz below and check the answers at the end. Pretty soon you will be wowing your friends with a host of fantastically sophisticated zombie words that you have brought back from the dead.

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All of these words were once very popular, but as time went on they fell out of favor and are now hardly remembered by anyone. For some reason, this reminds me of my own life after high school...

  1. Soothfast

 

A. A meal eaten after breakfast but before brunch- don’t worry you can still eat brunch afterwards

B. Honest and faithful like a dog, and unlike a cat

C. Really speedy

D. To promise not to eat soup for a month

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2. Bootless

 

A. Barefooted (you could wear socks I suppose)

B. A sold out shoe shop (it can happen!)

C. Useless, like a sold out shoe shop

D. A person who only wears slippers all day

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3. Gadzooks

 

A. An expression of surprise- something you might say at your local coffee shop when you see how much your extra foam chai latte costs

B. Small contraptions, gadgets that you will lose 23 minutes after you buy them

C. Godzilla’s grandmother

D. A type of pixie or elf, also small and easy to lose

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4. Betwixt

 

A. To turn into a chocolate bar

B. To make a wager with a witch (not advisable, by the way)

C. Twisted and tangled like the cables on your phone charger, headphones, hair dryer etc.

D. Between, as in ‘I am betwixt relationships at the moment.’

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5. Ague

 

A. A cute noise made by babies, usually followed by the need for a diaper change

B. A form of non-sticky glue

C. Illness, a great excuse to miss school or work

D. Dried up goop that should have been cleaned up a long time ago

 

6. Fandangle

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A. When a celebrity teases some ‘important’ news and then goes quiet

B. When you are goofing around with your friends and you break the ceiling fan, leaving it hanging by a single wire

C. The precise angle used by manufacturers of those lovely little paper hand fans

D. A useless object such as a celebrity, a broken ceiling fan, a lovely little hand fan, or a tube of non-sticky glue

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7. Mooncalf

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A. A silly person, such as a celebrity or anyone who uses those little hand fans

B. The first animal to set foot on the Moon, as part of NASA’s secret 1960s mission to establish a dairy farm in space

C. Any cow abducted by aliens and returned to Earth with a slightly sinister gleam in its eye

D. An injury to the back of your lower leg involving a large round swelling

 

8. Nunny- fudge

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A. A tasty treat made by highly religious women

B. When someone sneakily elbows you because they think something is funny, we call it a ‘funny-nudge’. ‘Nunny-fudge’ is the return elbow you give them to say ‘yes, it is funny, but stop or we will get into trouble.’

C. Someone with no energy- perhaps they have eaten too many treats made by religious women

D. To do something quickly at the last minute- ‘He clearly nunny-fudged this blog.’

9. Carpet-knight

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A. Someone who takes credit for something they did not do- basically anyone you work on a project with

B. A piece in the once popular game of ‘carpet chess’

C. A medieval British lord who traveled to the Holy Land to seek out the doormat used by Jesus at the Last Supper

D. A person who takes way too much pride in their home and defends it against anyone wearing muddy shoes, carrying an open drink, or eating Cheetos

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10. Glimstick

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A. A fairy in ‘Peter Pan’- like Tinkerbell, only stickier

B. That annoying type of glue with sparkles in it

C. Originally ‘glimpse-stick’, it refers to lipstick that is gone before anyone notices you are wearing it

D. A candle, particularly one that glimmers and throws shadows on the wall that are definitely not ghosts, or are they?

11. Blink-fencing

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A. A sport involving sword fighting and aggressive winking

B. Selling eyeglasses, perhaps to folks who wink too aggressively

C. Originally ‘bling-fencing’- fancy gold painted walls around your yard

D. Wooden barricades used to guide short-sighted people to their destinations

 

12. Dandiprat

 

A. A large rodent from the Indian region of Dandip

B. A person with excessive dandruff

C. An expert on little yellow flowers

D. An unimportant young person- so, any young person, really

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 (As if you needed them you brainy thing!)

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1. Soothfast means honest and faithful. Alternatively, it can be interpreted as 'easy to take advantage of'.

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2. Bootless means useless. To be fair, if you were a football player, a firefighter or the main character in 'Puss in Boots', you would be pretty useless without boots.

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3. Gadzooks is an expression of surprise. If you hear someone saying it you might be so surprised that you say 'gadzooks!' yourself. This might surprise the other person who may respond with another 'gadzooks!' of their own. Be careful not to get stuck in a 'gadzooks loop'.

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4. Ague means an illness. If you fake an illness to get out of school, make sure you do not make the same mistake the ten year old me made. I wrote a perfectly good note to the teacher but then signed it 'From my Mom'.

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5. Betwixt means between. Interestingly, Twix, the chocolate bar, comes from 'twin' and 'bix'. 'Bix' is short for biscuits, and 'twin' tells us there are two of them. As you already know, this does not mean you have to share them with anyone.

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6. Fandangle is a useless object. Any teacher will tell you that a great example of this is those fidget-spinners kids used to bring in to school to 'help them focus'. They helped kids focused in the same way that a man-eating shark would help you enjoy your morning swim.

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7. A Mooncalf is a silly person. It comes from a belief that ugly babies were born under a full Moon. I know you will be looking at your friends and family and wondering, so here is a website that tells you all the full Moons for the past 100 years or so:

ANSWERS

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8. A Nunny-fudge is a person lacking energy. However, I did find some nuns in Wrentham, Massachusetts who apparently make excellent fudge.

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9. A Carpet-knight is someone who takes credit for something they did not do. It originally referred to someone who got their knighthood during times of peace rather than for fighting bravely in battle. The name was dropped after the confusion caused by the Battle of Axminster, which was fought in a carpet warehouse.

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10. A Glimstick is a candle. Candles used to be made of animal fat or some gross stuff from sperm whales. They were very smelly. You could often hear conversations like this in the olden days:

Mom (from downstairs): Tim! Turn off that light and go to sleep!

Tim: How did you know the light was on??

Mom: I can smell it!

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11. Blink-fencing is selling eyeglasses. Fencing nowadays means selling stolen goods. I think it would be tricky to steal glasses and then find someone with exactly the same prescription to sell them to.

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12. A dandiprat is an unimportant young person. Apologies. Young people obviously are important. For example at Halloween, you can take them trick or treating and then steal half of their candy when you get home.

Make sure you learn all of these words off by heart. Your homework is to use at least five of them in conversation today. Nunny-fudges only have to use three. You dandiprats can do what you like as it will most likely be unimportant anyway.

Comments (1)

Guest
May 03, 2023

I am absolutely bespotted with the incredible depth and breadth of your wordology. Perhaps agast!

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