Tuesday 6 December 2022

yulehole (10. 367)

Via Language Hat, we are referred to a love letter to obscure and superannuated words—like the above that refers to the slacker notch in one’s belt that might be necessitated by the attendant feasting that goes along with the Festive Season—from Guardian contributor and logophile Paul Anthony Jones who offers a selection of Christmas-related terms like boun—that is, to dress with evergreen boughs, the snowballing effect of rolling across a field to accrue size is a hogamadog (also the name of a nascent snail shell that matures into something substantial), bull week, the period preceding the holiday and a time to sort out the rest of one’s business and particularly the Tudor-era term for a hangover, a barleyhood.