The English Wordsmith: A Lexical Eclecsis

The Financial Times. Sue Cameron's Notebook 15 June 2011?F-word writ large?Floccinaucinihilipilification the mot juste for what many people feel about politics. What does it mean? Why, contemptuously dismissing something, or treating it as worthless. This gem comes from a new book called The English Wordsmith, written by lawyer David Andrews, who died just before it was published. ??The book, described as a lexical eclecsis a compilation from various sources includes 8,000 difficult, obscure and unusual words. Its author, a bon vivant known to his friends as Sir Hartley after the great advocate Sir Hartley Shawcross, was an expert on estoppel. The Wordsmith says this is a legal rule that stops somebody from acting in a way that is at variance with something they have previously said or done That should apply to politicians!
Between The Covers: 29/05/2011 Your weekly guide to what's really going on in the world of books Sunday, 29 May 2011 *What is a kylie? It is a boomerang, according to a new book of 8,000 interesting and obscure words called The English Wordsmith: A Lexical Eclecsis (The Great Wordsmith LLP, £12.99). And what is an eclecsis? Why, it is a compilation from various sources. The author, David Andrews, was an avid collector of words who completed the work just before his death in 2010, and who said: 'Taking information from one source is plagiarism. Taking it from many is original research.' Other words in the eclecsis, which runs from aa to zymurgy (heads up, Scrabble fans), include sesquipedalian (given to using long words) and forswonk (overworked). We'd guess that there are still not words to describe how the Poetry Book Society and its ilk feel about the pigging bankers and the coalition shysters, however. --The Independent on Sunday. ;As two new fascinating books illustrate, language obsessives have been with us since the 16th century Tweet 7 Share http://gu.com/p/2pa9v/tw on Twitter The URL http://gu.com/p/2pa9v/tw has been shared 7 times.View these Tweets. Share Comments (1) Robert McCrum The Observer, Sunday 29 May 2011 Article history David Andrews s book of words and phrases may well become an indispensable weapon in the armoury of the Scrabbler . Photograph: Alamy Do you get a secret thrill from knowing that eclecsis means "a compilation from various sources", or feel a twinge of superiority in the precise use of "hone" not "home"? And were you pleased to hear President Obama, last week, saying "orient" where many people would say "orientate"? If you are not a professional subeditor and paid to fret about such matters, and your answer to any of the above is stronger than a definite maybe, then you are what Lynne Truss calls a "stickler" and the late David Foster Wallace a "snoot" (for Syntax Nudniks Of Our Time). You will also be interested in two books that recently landed on my desk, The English Wordsmith by David W Andrews and Crooked Talk by Jonathon Green. For as long as there has been a recognisable language, the colour, texture and everyday use of English has inspired the kind of devotion that lies north of obsession but south of idolatry. As early as 1531, some logomane (I just made that up) published a glossary of criminal slang entitled Hye-Way to the Spittel House. The Elizabethan writer Robert Greene, who may have been the model for Falstaff, --Financial Times Sue Cameron

Robert McCrum. The Observer. David Andrews s book of words and phrases may well become an indispensable weapon in the armoury of the Scrabbler . Do you get a secret thrill from knowing that eclecsis meansa compilation from various sources, or feel a twinge of superiority in the precise use of hone not home.And were you pleased to hear President Obama, last week, saying orient where many people would say orientate? If you are not a professional subeditor and paid to fret about such matters, and your answer to any of the above is stronger than a definite maybe, then you are what Lynne Truss calls a stickler and the late David Foster Wallace a snoot(for Syntax Nudniks Of Our Time). You will also be interested in The English Wordsmith by David W Andrews For as long as there has been a recognisable language, the colour, texture and everyday use of English has inspired the kind of devotion that lies north of obsession but south of idolatry...... Dr Johnson's lexicographical milestone was still about 150 years away, but the rising bourgeoisie was developing its well-known anxiety, in a class society, about proper English, the right word in the right context. David Andrews was a lawyer who knew who from whom and less from fewer. Before his untimely death in 2010, he devoted all his leisure hours to collecting important, relevant, obscure, difficult, unusual words and phrases in celebration of the richness and versatility of the language. His friends have now published his Lexical Eclecsis in a strangely appealing amateur volume. Andrews was the kind of man who wanted to record that a kylie is a boomerang, a miff is ;a small quarrel and ochlocracy another term for mob rule. He was also a snoot, an extreme usage fanatic, defined as somebody who knows what dysphemism means and doesn't mind letting you know it. Andrews cheerfully dismisses any critics of his work as zweite gesellschaft second-rate people. --The Observer

Between The Covers: The Independent on Sunday What is a kylie? It is a boomerang, according to a new book of 8,000 interesting and obscure words called The English Wordsmith. The author, David Andrews, was an avid collector of words and who said: "Taking information from one source is plagiarism. Taking it from many is original research." Other words in the eclecsis, which runs from aa to zymurgy (heads up, Scrabble fans), include sesquipedalian (given to using long words) and forswonk (overworked). The Guardian. Steven Poole The English Wordsmith: A Lexical Eclecsis, by David W Andrews (The Great Wordsmith LLP, £12.99) Logomanes might enjoy this hefty alphabetical collection of words that one man found interesting. A fair few are rather straightforward ("lunge", "puma", "immigrate"), and some definitions debatable (I don't think a "gloss" is necessarily "a misleading explanation"). Pleasing obscurities abound, however: new to this reader were "aduncous" ("hooked, curved inward"), "eident" ("busy; diligent"), "nutant" ("nodding") and "zoilism" ("fierce criticism"), which might come in handy. The book also works as a kind of aleatory encyclopedia, with advice on the ingredients of haggis, the names of Furies, useful French and German terms for strange feelings and people, and the fact that Old World monkeys are "more closely related to anthropoid apes than are New World monkeys". (The late author appeared to have had a fondness for animals, or at least the words for them.) A subtle humour occasionally makes itself felt, as when "cacoethes: an urge to do something unwise" is followed by "cacoethes scribendi: an urge to write". Tell me about it. The Spectator, MIND YOUR LANGUAGE Floccinaucininihilipilification A labour of love of the strangest kind, published posthumously, came to me this week. It is The English Wordsmith, by David Andrews (£12.99), which is nothing but 8,000 important, relevant, obscure, difficult, unusual words and phrases . He doesn t list Shakespeare s honorificabilitudinitatibus, but he does include floccinaucininihilipilification, presumably because of its unusual length, defining it as the action of contemptuously dismissing something, or treating it, as worthless . I wanted to know more. The OED notes that its earliest know use is by William Shenstone (whom I have never read) in a letter from 1741, and that it derives from a well-known rule of the Eton Latin Grammar ... In search of the well-know rule , I found in the London Library an edition from 1825... the rule appeared in the section on syntax... Another 7,999 of Mr Andrews s words to go. - Dot Wordsworth --Independent on Sunday. Guardian. Spectator.