Fashionable Words: Codger

[Sometimes words die out of fashion. But sometimes those words are good words, words with a certain appeal that can't be denied forever. Those words should be brought back into fashion, used frequently and used often. These are those words.]


Word:

codger


Definition:  noun

A typically elderly man who is eccentric or strange in a humorous way.


Origin:

Despite the old man angle, this has nothing to do with anyone named Roger or that delicious fish we all love, cod.

Not a codger cod, but a tasty cod.

The best words are the ones that confuse the experts in a variety of ways. The beauty of a word like codger is that it not only suggests eccentric behavior, but it's so eccentric as a word that dictionaries and etymologists are lost. Nothing like quality synergy, I tell ya!

Google will tell you codger is derogatory, an insult to elderly men said by some misanthropic millennial. Yet, Dictionary.com suggests codger is said with affection, like when you aww-shucks your old uncle Ken (a codger) at his surprise 90th birthday party. The Free Dictionary? It defines codger as both offensive and loving. Indeed, all dictionaries waffle between both extremes when offering a definition. Kindergartners at an ice cream stand are more decisive.

Kind of like the old man in 'Up' was a codger.

What experts agree on is that codger first came into use by the mid-1700s as an evolution of the obsolete word cadger. A cadger was someone who begged or was a peddler, based off the verb to cadge. It suggests a more romantic time for homelessness or being destitute, all while channeling the best of Charles Dickens before Dickens ever got around to making poverty look quaint. Oliver Twist? Totally grew up to be a codger.

Oliver Twist is a codger waitin' to happen!

As for cadge/cadger--etymologists have no idea where it came from. Some suggest the Middle English caggen, meaning "to tie," but how tying something came to mean begging is beyond understanding.

At least we can envision Granddad being eccentric like some pre-Victorian era beggar.


Most obscure UrbanDictionary.com definition of 'codger':
(verbatim)

3.)  Usually following the word "old"; 
a coffin dodger, an old person who moans about their arthritis. They have little hair on their head, but compensate by tufts sprouting from their ears and noses (male) chins and top lips (female). 
They dispise anything that anyone under 30 may do. 
Cant manage to drive more than 30mph, and only drive on Sundays.

Codgers only drive like this in shopping plaza parking lots.

Used in a sentence:

The flaky codger taught the kids in the alley how he used to play dice back in the day.


Why you should use 'codger' in your everyday life:

How often can you offend someone in a pleasant way?


Word Awesomeness Scale (1-to-5):

Two

After all, alluding that Gramps is also a beggar and/or a peddler is a bit low.

Jane Austen was tight with cash.

Maybe you're that type that watches CNBC, Fox Business, or Bloomberg all day and can't get enough talk about investments. Maybe you're just an inquisitive, nosy type about other people's finances. Either way, there's good news for you.

Coming up this week on the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, there are a million different angles being taken to commemorate her. One is the Bank of England of all places, which is putting on a year-long exhibition where you can see Austen's ledger and how she computed interest on her deposits. You can also see how other writers like Charles Dickens and George Eliot invested their money.

I don't know about you, but I'm just fanning myself in excitement to learn about that 4% interest Austen earned on her £15 deposit.

Fashionable Words: Ragamuffin

"I'm a--a--what?"

[Sometimes words die out of fashion. But sometimes those words are good words, words with a certain appeal that can't be denied forever. Those words should be brought back into fashion, used frequently and used often. These are those words.]


Word:

Ragamuffin



Definition:  noun

A ragged, disreputable person; often a child in dirty clothes and an unkempt state.



Origin:

Nothing pleases the British like making poverty sound quaint. Charles Dickens made a career off this model after all. And like most British words, ragamuffin is a child born of many parents.

There's no be-all origin story for ragamuffin. The first known use of it was in the Middle English epic poem Piers Plowman, not to be confused with modern English media personality Piers Morgan. Written in the 1300s about a character named Will who keeps falling asleep and having dreamvisions of spiritual meetings with religious figures, it's as exciting and titillating as you might imagine 14th century sleep to be. Ragamuffin makes its first known appearance in history as Ragamoffyn, a demon's name in the poem.

Morgan, not Plowman.

Wait--does this mean we actually have been calling Tiny Tim and Oliver Twist demons all this time? Yes. Yes, that's what I'm saying. We're all terrible people, you especially. I never claimed to like Dickens.

Most sources don't know what ragamuffin evolves from. The word probably comes from some variety of surname of the time, with "rag" being what you imagine--that thing you refuse to pick up to clean your bathroom. Even the famed English word master Samuel Johnson was uncommitted to the word's birth, actually stating in his famed dictionary, "From rag and I know not what else." In other words, he's got nothing. Thanks, Sam!

I got nothing for you.

"Muffin" probably just comes from a cute English wordplay, which is as cute as the Brits get, but some claim the word evolved from Middle Dutch's muffe, which means mitten, thus the clothing angle reinforced. Muffe would sound confusing these days after all, as we'd picture a fifty-something WASPy woman in jewels who is clearly no ragamuffin.

Shakespeare ends up using the word in 1597 in his play Henry IV (I'll save you the convoluted line), but it doesn't really gain traction in popularity until the 1800s. Writers like Louisa May Alcott, Anna Sewell, and Mark Twain all use it in their novels, and Charles Dickens pretty much creates the titular ideal of a ragamuffin in Oliver Twist. Google Books' Ngram Viewer even shows the spike in usage as the 19th century rolled on:

What does this all mean?

I don't know. Just that Oliver and Tiny Tim are demons.



Most obscure UrbanDictionary.com definition of ragamuffin:

12.  A person who does not like turnips or rutabagas.



Used in a sentence:

Part of me wondered if Oliver was angelic, but something suggested he was demonic, especially considering his filthy appearance as a ragamuffin from the streets.



Why you should use ragamuffin in your everyday life:

It subtly suggests delicious breakfast treats while reminding you you're too dirty, poor, and disheveled to afford delicious breakfast treats.



Word Awesomeness Scale (1-to-5):

Four.

It loses a point for being the name of a random cat breed and obscure Christian movie.

The 10 (err, 11?) Greatest Sentences Ever Written [according to The American Scholar].

Let's face facts.

First off, The American Scholar's article about 10 Best Sentences is indecisive. It's actually 11, not 10.

Other issues? The 11 best sentences are written by 7 Americans, 2 Brits, an Irishman, and a Russian. Because if there's anything we can all agree on, it's that England hasn't given a lick to the field of literature. And the rest of the world? Pssh, please.

You might think this is a logical extension of the The American Scholar journal. You might ask, "But The American Scholar is all about America, no?"

No. Their own "About Us" states nothing about star-spangled Americana in literature, or that Jane Austen is an honorary member of the Tea Party.

So how is this top-10/11 made up?

8 men.
3 women.
7 Americans.
2 Brits.
1 Irishman.
1 Russian.
10 Caucasians.
1 African American.

...and that's it. Toni Morrison does double-duty covering quotas as a black woman, but otherwise there's no diversity, no extension of talent, no breadth of real insight into amazing sentences within the realm of literature. If you're a white American male, odds are you're writing literary gold, baby!

And that's the problem.

So who's included on this list? Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion, James Joyce, John Hersey, Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, Tim O'Brien, Charles Dickens, Vladimir Nabokov, and Truman Capote.

It's like a who's who of obviousness until you hit John Hersey. And lord only knows who Tim O'Brien and Joan Didion are blackmailing in the field of literature, because the orgasmic obsession some have for them can only be explained through nefarious means.

Who's needed in this top-10/11? Margaret Atwood, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Anton Chekhov, Wole Soyinka, Doris Lessing, Boris Pasternak, Junot Diaz, Alice Munro, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, Samuel Beckett, Alice Walker, Kazuo Ishiguro, Kate Grenville, Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Albert Camus. Pick a half dozen, swap them out with The American Scholar's list, and you've got something.

But, hey, God forbid.

Where Dead Writers Reside: Part Two

It's October, and that requires obligatory Halloween-inspired posts. And nothing is more obligatorily macabre than looking at the tombstones of those who have died.

Now through Halloween we'll post collections of tombstones to see where famous writers are hanging out today.

Today: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, Charles Dickens, Robert Frost

 F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald was a notorious alcoholic for decades, and often claimed he had contracted a mild form of tuberculosis. Nonetheless, he spent his final decade in decline, his body withering.

Weakened by previous heart attacks, Fitzgerald was struck dead after a final, massive coronary arrest in 1940 while (according to his lover) he was eating a candy bar.

Remember that on Halloween when you grab that extra Snickers.

Labeled a non-practicing Catholic, Fitzgerald wasn't allowed burial in a Catholic cemetery, leading to his original internment in Rockville Union Cemetery in Rockville, MD. Later, after Zelda's death, the Fitzgerald's daughter, Frances, worked to have the Catholic church overturn their ruling on the burial banishment. She succeeded, leading to her parents' current residence at Saint Mary's Cemetery across town in Rockville.

Tombstone Notes:
Including a passage from one's own book is one last final indulgence. It's like a literary gin and tonic.

Sylvia Plath

Plath, who battled with depression for many years, attempted suicide multiple times during her short life.

In 1963, her marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes deteriorating (he was busy with other women) and in the throws of depression once again, Plath sealed off the kitchen with wet towels, placed her head in the oven, and turned on the gas.

So, yeah. That's a downer.

Buried in St. Thomas' Churchyard, Heptonstall, West Yorkshire, England, Plath's fans have continually tried to chisel off Hughes from the tombstone. While Ted Hughes was alive, he regularly had the tombstone removed, fixed, and placed back in its original location.

Tombstone Notes:
Ted Hughes included the epitaph on his wife's marker, potentially from a 16th century Chinese poet Wu Ch'Eng-En--but some disagree as to its origins. Because when you want to go with obscure sources, go big, my man.

Charles Dickens

Dickens spent the last few years of life in declining health, starting with bouts of paralysis (mild strokes) in 1868 incurred from a heavy itinerary of public readings.

By 1870, gravely ill, Dickens suffered a severe stroke at his home, and spent a day unconscious before dying.

Planning for death well in advance, Dickens desired a burial at Rochester Cathedral, near his home at Gad's Hill, "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner."

Showing that the dead can't file a complaint, Dickens was instead buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. While the official funeral ceremony was relatively private (only twelve mourners were in attendance), the grave was left open so thousands of people could walk past and pay their respects.

Expensive? Check.
Ostentatious? Check.
Public memorial? Check.

Sorry, Chuck. You rambled on so long with your books that no one could pay attention when you died.

Tombstone Notes:
Fun fact time! Dickens' plot is surrounded by a who's-who of famous dead Brits, including Rudyard Kipling, George Fredrick Handel, and Thomas Hardy. It'd be a great guest list for a dinner party if you really wanted to be bored.

Robert Frost

While living to quite a ripe age of 88, Frost was slowed down in his later years. In late December 1962, Frost went to the hospital for a needed prostate surgery. Not the best of ideas for the severely elderly, complications were had, most notably a heart attack. A month later, Frost died.

When he was sixty-six years old, Frost purchased a burial plot for his entire family at the Old Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, VT, where the entire roster of dead Frosts currently resides.

Anyone who wagered money that Bennington, of all places, is where the notoriously hopscotching Frost would end up must've made a fortune.

Tombstone Notes:
Frost quotes himself from his poem 'The Lesson for Today.'

"I had a lover's quarrel with the world," says Frost's marker--painting an image no one in the world ever associates with Frost.

Book Review: Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

This is part of the continuing series of random book reviews that'll be nothing like a New York Times book review. Gone is the ten thousand word analysis. Instead, here is a book review like you'd tell your friends.

The book: Charles Dickens's Bleak House

So let me get this straight, Chuck.

You're writing a perfectly dull story that involves the English Chancery court system--an everyday slice of boring life--and halfway through a thousand page novel, because you were bored with your own story perhaps, you have a character spontaneously combust.

Dead.

Again--and this can't be emphasized enough--by spontaneous combustion.

And then you continue on with the novel as if human spontaneous combustion is an everyday occurrence, much like dust allergens or abundant flatulence.

Answer me this, Chuck: How much opium were you on?

Judge offers alleged robber freedom while awaiting trial if he reads and writes book reports.

That's just cruel and unusual punishment if he's forced to read Charles Dickens.

Prison, man--sometimes you just need to embrace prison.

Now you, too, can be Mr. Darcy.

U Star Novels now has a collection of classic novels in which all famous characters are swapped out and replaced with your sad excuse of a exciting life! You supply the names and important facts, and U Star Novels replaces all the pertinent information inside the famous texts.

Some available stories include...

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet: Now you, too, can be involved in a double-suicide!

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: All the fun of split personality disorders and indiscriminate murder!

Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Darcy's black hole of a personality can be yours!

And not one, not two...but four Charles Dickens novels: Because you're a horrible, horrible masochist!

In case you've got $325 to burn on something to hold your pack of gum.

Kate Spade makes bags and stuff. Stuff my Y chromosome doesn't appreciate fully.

But she makes some stuff that looks like this:

Or like this:

And this...

And...

The real irony here is that the only people who've read those books are too poor to afford those purses. But that's why bankruptcy exists. The commercial on the radio with the official sounding lawyer told me so.

In another era, The Wire would've been a Charles Dickens novel.

The Wire was an HBO drama that never received the hype of The Sopranos or Sex and the City.

But The Sopranos and Sex and the City never had a cult following that created a pseudo-Victorian novel based on it.

Okay, so officially neither has The Wire. But The Hooded Utilitarian website made a blog post pretending to unearth a whole faux Victorian novel of The Wire, including pages of faked text and typical Victorian novel drawings you'd expect to see in anything of Dickens, like the one you see to the left.

Maybe, someday, someone will make a Tony Soprano blog post in the vein of a Wilkie Collins Victorian mystery novel. If there's anything that can be said about Wilkie's work it's that it's always lended itself to pinkie rings and men shouting "Bada bing!"

If only Stieg Larsson had thought up his book titles while he was alive.

Better Book Titles is a website I wish I thought of first. (Just like how I wish I thought of the ShamWow or Slap Chop before someone else. And don't even get me started on the Graty.)

Better Book Titles re-names books as they should have been titled all along. In essence, it's a book summary/critique in ten words or fewer.

Put another way: it'll save you at least twenty-five hours you would have spent reading Tolstoy or Dickens.

Can a book save your life? No, literally, can it stop a bullet?

You'll want to know these sorts of things if you've lived in some of the neighborhoods I have. Kevlar is expensive. But padding your body with about 50 copies of thousand page tomes might work in a jiffy.

That's why Electric Literature (an online site of short fiction) decided to test if any girthy 2010 releases could save you from dying. It turns out one book was made for parts of Fitchburg.



Or save your money and just buy any book by Dickens at a thrift shop. That man made literary Kevlar for forty years.