English is a constantly changing mess of new words being borrowed and invented and existing words falling into disuse and obsolescence. With that going on for so long, it’s no wonder that some pretty good words have fallen out of use.
One word that hasn’t been seen in centuries, and might be a good candidate for reanimation, is “spriten.” It means to reanimate. To enliven, or raise the spirits of something. You might spriten a party by turning on some music, or spriten a person by cheering them up. Here’s how it was used in 1614: “Griefe, cast not downe, Ioy, spritned not their Eyes.” I mean, what’s not to like about spriten?” It’s concise, pretty vivid, and you could use it all over the place to spriten your writing.
“Bejan” could be another candidate for reintroduction. When it was used, between about 1600 and 1800, it meant a beginner or novice — and was the common term for referring to freshmen just admitted to college in Scotland. If we bring it back, we could say things like “The bejan’s fresh perspective spritened our debate.”
A word needn’t have disappeared centuries ago to warrant reintroduction. Take “transluce,” a pretty nice word that means light shining through, as in “Let Ioy transluce thy Beauties blandishment” (1609). This is immediately understandable, thanks to its similarity to “translucent,” and it’s easily remembered, too. You can still find it, like in a 1995 Nabokov novel: “The sunlight..transluced through the long curtain hanging in the entrance.” But it’s so rare that it nearly qualifies as forgotten. Just think of the possibilities if a bejan’s spritening were to transluce our understanding, of, say, isicathamiya.
OK, isicathamiya is a ringer. It’s pretty obscure, but it’s not old, and probably not a good candidate for greater popularity given its length and obscure pronunciation. The word has only been around in English since the 1970s, when it was adopted from Zulu to describe a style of singing. If you’ve listened to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, you’ve heard isicathamiya.
It’s probably not a coincidence that pretty soon after the word “isicathamiya” first appeared in English, the style itself — a bejan on the international music scene — began to spriten popular recordings; an important factor as the obscurity around nasty policies in South Africa was transluced by publicity. See what I mean? Some of these words can be excellent boosters of hirquitalliency!
