The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language

Mr Forsyth does it again If you liked the Etymologicon, or you re just the kind of person who likes tons of out of use or foreign words for everyday things, liberally sprinkled with dry British wit and jokes about being drunk or going to the toilet, then this is the book for you.Whereas the Etymologicon was a roundabout trip through a sequence of words, each one linking to the next This is the Horologicon the book of hours Each chapter is dedicated to an hour in the life of the mythical, idealis [...]

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Author, Mark Forsyth, warns readers against consuming The Horologicon A Day s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language start to finish, cautioning that If you do, Hell itself will hold no horrors for you, and neither the author nor his parent company will accept liability for any suicides, gun rampages or crazed nudity that may result However, given that the words are organized by hour of the day hence the title , as opposed to alphabetically, this should be taken with a grain of sal [...]

I went against Forsyth s suggestion and read this front to back, so the only hour I was reading at the appointed time was midnight, when I finished it I don t care that it s a newspaper endorsed bestseller because the culture sections are heavily opinionated in the Guardian the report about the new out of town wing of the Louvre said it was a mistake and I don t read them I also can t be arsed to review it using obscure words because I m going to bed soon and it s gimmicky.That s the ungimmicky [...]

Too many of the words, imo, are jargon still in use by medical and other professionals but I imagine that s my impression, and the actual count reveals only a few.I do know that too many never were known, and are too long to have ever been in common use I was hoping for words simply archaic, and not truly lost And many of the lost words are synonyms for better words we have now.That being said Scuddle to run with a kind of affected haste or precipitation Fisk to run about hastily and heedlessly [...]

Mark Forsyth has given us several entertaining books about words, reading, drunkenness, and turning a phrase He s a committed fan of dictionaries and this book digs deeply into wonderful words, going even beyond the Oxford English Dictionary into old studies of dialects and specialized books on jargon used in some professions.It s the type of book that might best be taken in small bites to learn and take notes, but Forsyth is an interesting enough writer to keep the book entertaining for an end [...]

I love Forsyth s other books, but this one didn t quite hit the mark for me It felt like it was trying too hard The last third of the book is definitely the most entertaining, and it did introduce me to the term wonderwench , which is now the only form of address that I will respond to, so it was worth it Lovers of words should still read this, but if you are strapped for time, stick with his other two books.

Here is a book subtitled A Day s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language a papery child of the Inky Fool blog 2009 blogkyfool In 2016, this is a book which might well be thought to be looking for a selling point in 2016 The author emphatically and unsurprisingly recommends a carefully considered reading of his book of weird words for unusual situations, one day at a time Of course he s right, his aim is to quomodocunquize make a living.Initially, a swift scanning of the pages by eye [...]

I loved this author s other language book, The Etymologicon, so once I heard about this one I knew I had to read it This is a different sort of book though and doesn t quite hit the mark The previous book, as the title suggests, is about the origins behind words, a topic I find fascinating I like to know why we use words the way we do and how they evolved to current standards This book though is less about origins, though some are included, and about obscure and forgotten words for various thin [...]

Drawn largely from the author sThe Inky Fool blog, Horologicon explores the varied terminology English speakers have used the last several hundred years to describe the events and things around them The book s title refers to the ancient practice of carrying a book of the hours with prayers and readings appropriate for reflect throughout the day.Revealing some of the unique and humorous terms would spoiled the fun, besides most of us wouldn t know how to pronounce many of the words Yule hole was [...]

Somewhat unfortunately, I read this at the same time as the new QI book of 1,227 facts, which included many of the words in this volume, obviously not by total coincidence It s a fun book, though, with Mark Forsyth s humour as much as or in evidence than in The Etymologicon I don t think I m going to remember many of these words, if any, but they are indeed satisfying and odd, and some of them are undeservedly defunct.

A thoroughly entertaining romp through rare and obsolete words that are appropriate for different times of the day Forsyth arranges his 19 chapters chronologically from waking to turning in for the night, taking the reader from 6am to 12 midnight, from dawn, dressing, breakfast and commute through work, lunch and procrastination to tea time, food shopping, going out and returning home to bed This book was to me a delight, light and witty in tone but erudite in knowledge Forsyth readably conveys [...]

An amusing look at obsolete English words set in the context of the reader s day Almost fiction Very readable and could be used as a reference book too I love words and linguistics Mark Forsyth is a very clever man

If you haven t read Mark Forsyth, you are missing out His self deprecating humor combines with linguistic reveries so that any lover of the language will relish his thoughts I don t know if I ll be using many of the lost words in this volume in any of my writing David Foster Wallace did in Infinite Jest when he brought back eschaton to describe the tennis academy s Armageddon game The arcane words are thick and plentiful and if you need a reference book to keep track of ways to say someone is dr [...]

I ve learnt a bunch of out of use English words with this book, unfortunately I can t think of any other pompous and well deserved word than magnificent to describe The Horologycon A Day s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language 2012.Complete review on Medium.

Audience Those who love the meaning and origins of words.Summed up in one word There isn t just one word for this bookere are lotsAuthor Bio Mark Forsyth is a writer, journalist, proofreader, ghost writer and pendant After starting his Inky Fool blog, he continued that work into The Horologicon MF loves etymology and he is a gifted wordsmith First Impression I am so happy when I come across books like this Books that talk about words, books, bookshops or any other interesting subject surrounding [...]

Are you looking for that wonderful gift to present to the individual in your life who appears to have swallowed a lexicon with their mornings repast, and have you been a bit tardy in getting said article Well fret not here is an awesome nay, Brobdingnagian offering that could easily engender feelings of exuberance and even adoration from said recipient In his preambulation Mark Forsyth states that this book is for those words that are To beautiful to live long, too amusing to be taken seriously, [...]

The Horologicon is a delightful journey through an entire day populated by words that have meandered out of the every day English usage Forsyth s tone is cheeky, slightly irreverent and very, very engaging It is funny because although this is what Louise Rosenblatt would term efferent reading, reading The Horologicon doesn t feel as mentally taxing and as dense as one feel after say, reading something else that demands attention, something that isn t for fun, per se, but to glean information fro [...]

First Reads copy Horologicon certainly helped me rediscover old, obscure terms that can still be used It was certainly well researched and documented However, the author seemed not to be able to decide whether he wanted to write a research tool or a humorous book on language Sadly, I felt he failed on both accounts The layout of the book, while improving on dictionaries in the sense that it is based on when you may need a certain word, is not fully conducive to quickly finding the right term I f [...]

Forsyth likes to hunt through arcane and regional dictionaries for quaint words, which he groups and weaves into a narrative interlarded with outrageous British humour When he s not making you laugh, he s making apt observations about words and their origins, their denotations, their connotations, and their connections It s edifying, and it s a window into the different ways a language evolves.Tatterdemalion has the lovely suggestion of dandelions towards the end although pronounced with all the [...]

The prologue had me old man laughing with tears rolling down my face, which was a little unfair The rest of the book didn t quite stack up to the beginning but it certainly had it s moments This little tome managed to sufficiently satisfy my craving for dry random humor as well as my liking for wordiness nearly obsolete words.

An incredibly humours and worthwhile walkabout through the English language, with interesting explanations, the necessary irony and plethora of sly remarks to make a potentially dry subject a jolly hoot Absolutely a must read for fans of language and the English language in particular.

From BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week The Etymologicon was last year s surprise runaway bestseller The author has now assembled The Horologicon, or book of hours, to delight his audience with a feast of words appropriate to a precise moment of the day.

Really interesting book, discovering new words Trying to find a way of incorporating uhtceara and snollygoster into my everyday vocabulary

This a christmas stocking book aimed at those sitting on the loo for a while fun but frivolous

Quite fun, but recommended in small doses, or you ll feel as dirty and exasperated as if you d swallowed an entire Stephen Fry in one sitting.

I expected to love this and it did not disappoint I expect to be reading it and the etymologicon, of course regularly until I ve memorised all the words it contains Such wonderful expressions.

There is an Old English word meaning, lying awake before the dawn, worrying So begins The Horologicon I happened to hear that line read as I was lying in bed around 4 30 in the morning, unable to sleep I was amused And hooked Uhtceare is not a well known word even by Old English standards, which were pretty damn low In fact, there is only one recorded instance of it actually being used But uhtceare is there in the dictionaries nonetheless, still awake and waiting for dawn.Uht pronounced oot , is [...]

A lovely book within which the charm, erudition and wit of Forsyth s writing shines through to a degree equalling that achieved in The Etymologicon and Elements of Eloquence In covering hundreds of lost yet inquisitively fascinating words, Forsyth demonstrates a Brysonesque quality of style, magpieing from dictionaries ranging from staple classics like Dr Johnson s and the OED to obscure dust gatherers, including tomes covering early 20th century jive culture and the less hip East Anglian diale [...]

I listened to this one audiobook and while I really enjoyed it, I think I need the physical book handy for reference I know I would have highlighted the heck out of this book It was such fun listening to this as the narrator, Don Hagen, used perfect inflection and tone I seriously laughed than one time, much than one time Not only at the words, but the writer sense of humor I like how he set the book up based on the hour of the day and where your typical employee might be during that timeframe [...]