Poppycock!

I enjoy words. Fallen out of common usage? Effectively obsolete? Regional colloquialism? More please.

It's like hearing language out of time on the rare occasions when old-timey words are spoken. I had relatives who called couches "davenports". I've never heard anyone else call them by that name. The thought of the word makes me smile.

I had the good luck to get a ticket to the Blue Jackets game for five bucks tonight--thanks students for not buying them all from student activities!--and got to hear a fan express himself in a way I've never heard at a sporting event. At one point he implored an official to make a call and referred to him as "old bean". Where am I, jolly old England? Another time he objected to a call by claiming it was "balderdash". I waited for "tarnation!" and "bosh!" but had to settle for just two gems.

I laughed deep inside at his use of these words, and I'm finding myself pretty amused thinking about it now. Fans in the stands don't usually flaunt such rich (or patrician) vocabularies. To hear these words was quite pleasurable; to hear them in the context of a hockey game was positively sublime.