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Apr 1, 2004

This week's theme
Unusual words

This week's words
bushwa
resistentialism
cock-a-hoop
gadzookery
petrichor

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gadzookery

gadzookery (gad-ZOO-kuh-ree) noun

Use of archaic words or expressions, e.g. wight (a human being), prithee (I pray thee).

[Apparently from gadzooks, once used as a mild oath, which may have been an alteration of God's hooks, a reference to the nails of Christ's crucifixion.]

"Why does a novelist turn to history? Commonly it is for a new wealth of verifiable particulars, a ready supply of the circumstantial details that promise to make fiction probable. Rose Tremain followed this track for her commercially and critically successful novel, Restoration, a book full of the quirks and ruffles of a half-familiar past. There was, however, more than a hint of gadzookery about it."
John Mullan; Life's Small Lendings; The Guardian (London, UK); May 3, 2003.

"She (Georgette Heyer) wanted to write more serious historical novels. Unfortunately the books she wrote outside her period have a tendency towards the gadzookery of Baroness Orczy."
The Romantic Novels of Georgette Heyer; BBC (London, UK); May 17, 2002.

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