The Endangered English Dictionary: Bodacious Words Your Dictionary Forgot [Paperback]

David Grambs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 17, 1997

"Like animals, plants and book reviewers, words can become extinct, but Grambs is here to salvage the most missed of the lexical dinosaurs."—Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle

We often hear about the richness of the English language, how many more words it contains than French or German. And yet modern desk dictionaries are the result of a paring away of that glory, so that merely standard, functional, current words remain. The price we pay for such convenience is the thousands of delightful words we never see or hear.

This book is an effort to save some of those words applicable to everyday life and countless word games from extinction. The resultant treasure trove of exotic verbal creatures is an indispensable resource for every lover of language.

A selection:

egrutten: having a face swollen from weeping

numquid: an inquisitive person

sardoodledum: drama that is contrived, stagy, or unrealistic

mimp: to purse one's lips

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sometimes it seems that there are as many collections of archaic words as there are archaic words. Most of them are amusing in their own esoteric sort of way, but few aim for more than entertainment value. David Grambs watches over words gone (or going) by in the same way that the National Wildlife Federation watches over grizzly bears and timber wolves. He would like his readers to think of his Endangered English Dictionary as "a constant reminder of the words that could have been, that fell through the cracks. Or--" he challenges, "if you and enough others make imaginative use of this book--that still could become part of our everyday usage." Toward this goal, Grambs has chosen "common-use, nontechnical words," and he has arranged his book as a two-way dictionary.

So if you are looking for a compact way to describe something--a flower, say--that smells strongest at night, try "noctuolucent." If you were a delicate blossom, or even a whole "tuzzymuzzy" (a bunch of flowers), you too might wish to avoid the "sizzard" (unbearably humid heat) of summer days. --Jane Steinberg

From Library Journal

Grambs (The Describer's Dictionary, LJ 2/ 15/93) includes entries here not usually found in smaller paperback dictionaries- for example, "habile," which means able or skillful, and "uvid," which means moist or wet. His book is arranged in standard dictionary form with simplified meanings and usage illustrations, such as "dangerously esquillous lumber" (meaning splintery). The work also includes an easy pronunciation system and a reverse glossary that allows the user to look up words by definition. The entries have been largely compiled from the OED, the second and third editions of Webster's New International Dictionary, and Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary. Libraries that already own several of these dictionaries or at least one good one and a thesaurus will have little need for this title. Recommended only for libraries that collect heavily in this area.
Neal Wyatt, Mary Washington Coll. Lib., Fredericksburg, Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (August 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393316068
• ISBN-13: 978-0393316063
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #878,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eerily addicting even to people with only a casual interest, September 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Endangered English Dictionary: Bodacious Words Your Dictionary Forgot (Paperback)

Although it stretches the imagination that such words as "infrangelic" and "mysot" can be casually used in day to day conversation, the words garnered by Mr. Grambs are just plain fun. Even for people with only a casual interest in English or writing will find this book strangely compelling. It's a book that is just a hit or a miss. My family is filled with big readers. My father found it boring. My mother bought her own copy within a couple of days. My brother put it down in a minute. My sister-law read it almost straight through. The book will allow you to almost always get the last "word."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A euphoric experience for logophiles, August 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Endangered English Dictionary: Bodacious Words Your Dictionary Forgot (Paperback)

Of the dozens of books I own on obscure, bizarre, and fascinating words, The Endangered English Dictionary is probably my favorite. David Grambs does not merely include obscure terms that have fallen into desuetude. Instead, he provides unusual words that are highly useful even today, be they employed in thought alone or in speech. I was in awe of our wonderful language when I began to read this book. It's the perfect gift for that sesquipedalian verbivore you know and love.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I could do without Bodacious, October 23, 2004

By 

Jonathan Appleseed - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Endangered English Dictionary: Bodacious Words Your Dictionary Forgot (Paperback)

With the exception of the word "bodacious" (perhaps because a Chicago radio personality called himself "Bodacious So-and-So", and I found him annoying beyond measure, this is a terrific book. It's strength is that it has a reverse glossary, so that it functions, in a way, as a thesaurus. If you want an archaic word that pertains to acting, you'd never find it without a reverse glossary. With it, you find "roscian". Roscius was a roman actor who died around 67 bc, so "roscian" refers to certain styles of acting that reflect his emotive techniques.

Also, just flipping through the pages is fun. You find words jump out at you.

sizzard: unbearably humid heat
eupsychics: good education
cymotrichous: having wavy hair

Most importantly, the author uses the word in a sentence fragment, so that we know not only its definition, but its intended usage.