The Horologicon by Mark Forsyth

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781848314153
Format: Hardback
Pages: 258
Genre: Non-Fiction, Humour, Reference
Publication Date: November 1, 2012

SYNOPSIS

The Horologicon (or book of hours) gives you the most extraordinary words in the English language, arranged according to the hour of the day when you really need them.

From Mark Forsyth, author of the bestselling The Etymologicon, this is a book of weird words for familiar situations.  From ante-jentacular to snudge by way of quafftide and wamblecropt, at last you can say, with utter accuracy, exactly what you mean.

REVIEW

One of my secret, well soon to be not so secret, insecurities is my perceived lack of an extensive vocabulary.  While I know that there are very few people that can claim complete mastery of the English language, I do feel more often than not that I can articulate myself much better in the written form rather than spoken. Is it because I get somewhat overly excited at times and my mouth runs miles away from my thoughts? Or hopefully, it’s the opposite and my mouth is frantically trying to catch up to my rampant thoughts, stumbling over words and leaving a trail of half constructed and only semi-coherent sentences in its wake. Most people that know me quite well will describe me at best as a rambler; a person who lacks organization in her speech or writing, but hopefully I’m an interesting one.

I would love to have the linguistic ability to say exactly what I want clearly and concisely when needed.  It may sound geeky, but that would be the equivalent of granting me a much coveted superpower. Forget flying circles around my enemies, I would love the skill and knowledge base to talk circles around them instead.  Give me Socrates over Superman any day.  

So now make way for my newly discovered modern day hero, Mark Forsyth: demystifier of obscure words, phrases, rhetoric and prose and my personal harbinger of lexical efficiency. His newest book, The Horologicon, or Book of Hours, is a brilliantly crafted collection of strange and wonderful words appropriate to each hour of the day. And that is exactly why this book is pure genius.

By assigning a certain hour and the common activities associated with that time of day to a single chapter and placing you, the reader, firmly as the main character of his narrative, Forsyth has already cunningly set the ground work for making all these seemingly daunting and strange words identifiable. He injects unfamiliar words seamlessly into familiar activities without jarring the reader away from the engrossing and intentionally educational depiction of their life.      

How many times have you thought “There HAS to be a word for that?” when going about a commonplace routine or daily activity? Ever seen some delicious morsel of food on a friend’s plate that you suddenly wish you had ordered yourself? Stared longingly after it as they painstakingly devour the object of your desire one slow bite at a time and with it the tiny slivers of hope you had of obtaining a sample. There’s a word for that!

Groke: To stare wistfully at somebody while they are eating in the hope that they will give you some of their food.

Maybe knowing exactly the word to describe your anguish will soften the blow for you when it happens next time. Probably not, but it gives you something else to focus on rather than that diminishing dessert.

While I can’t even begin to comprehend how to pronounce this next word, I still think it’s utterly brilliant and perfectly describes my entire time at University in one succinct word.

Shturmovshchina: The practice of working frantically just before a deadline, having not done anything for the last month.

The Horologicon draws from an interesting compilation of source material ranging from the expected; the Oxford English dictionary, to the obscure; Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, to the downright amusing; the Anatomy of Melancholy.  My personal favourite is The Vocabulary of East Anglia; An Attempt to Record the Vulgar Tongue of the Twin Sister Counties, Norfolk and Suffolk as It Existed In the Last Years of the Eighteenth Century, and Still Exists by Reverend Robert Forby, possibly because I’ve lived in Norwich now for about 6 years and there are still an alarming number of strange words I get introduced to every year. Keith Skipper has made a living from compiling several volumes solely on the oddities of the traditional Norfolk language, much to the delight of both tourists and locals.

What is surprising is that despite the endless stream of new terms thrown at you in rapid succession, the book remains an easily accessible and addictive read that rivals any fiction page-turner. It's been a while since I've last encountered a non fiction book that I've thoroughly enjoyed reading from beginning to end.  An absolute joy to read and to top it off I actually learned a useful thing or two from it. Mark Forsyth’s writing is witty and informative without ever succumbing to sounding smug or conceited. He’s charismatic, intelligent and inventive, but you never once hate him for it. Well, maybe a little. As much as I admire him as a writer, I can’t help but be envious of his ability to turn a phrase.

“It is for the words too beautiful to love long, too amusing to be taken seriously, too precise to become common, too vulgar to survive in polite society, or too poetic to thrive in this age of prose. They are a beautiful troupe hidden away in dusty dictionaries… They are the lost words, the great secrets of old civilisations that can still be useful to us today.”

A perfect companion to your daily routine, The Horologicon provides intrigue to even the most minuscule and mundane of life’s little chores. So embark on this linguistic journey to shed a new perspective on your everyday activities, rescue a new found favourite word from obscurity and then go forth and unleash your new found linguistic prowess on the unsuspecting masses. Your life and your vocabulary will be richer for it.

Short and Sweet: The Twitter Review

Exceedingly clever and endlessly entertaining. Filled with weird and wonderful forgotten words, The Horologicon is a rare reference book that begs to be read cover to cover in one sitting.