Forgotten English III: Long Lost Insults Knowledge Cards

Description

Forgotten English III: Long Lost Insults Knowledge Cards

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 neighbour 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.

Suggestions for Use

Quiz Nights

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and the pandemic has forced change onto all of us. One of the benefits is that many people have discovered how to connect to others online using video calls (FaceTime or Zoom for example). To keep people feeling buoyant, a wonderful lady in the Worcestershire village of White Ladies Aston has maintained a community spirit during the lockdowns by holding regular events via video calls. One of the popular online events is a village quiz. Using a set of cards such as the Knowledge Cards, they hold a fun quiz (nothing too serious!). The organiser reads out a question (or if it’s a picture, holds it up to the camera) and everyone writes down their answer. At the end, they go through the answers together.

Learn Something New

Knowledge Cards are an ideal way to keep your mind flexible by learning something new every day. Each day, pull out a card and learn the fact/facts (some cards contain several). If you have access to the internet or some reference books, you could look even deeper into the topic and really expand your knowledge.

Improve Your Memory

If you like the idea above of learning something new, why not take it one step further and improve your memory too? Learn the fact on the card, then the next day learn a new one but also recall the one from the previous day. As you get good at that, see if you can remember three days of facts, or four or even more. Keep challenging yourself. Working on your memory will improve your bridge game when you get back to it too!