Fegans, Jorts, Rababs And Scotch Bonnets

The Word Collector — part 26

This is the latest in a series about new words and phrases, specimens collected during expeditions into the deepest, darkest literary and media wilderness, and displayed for your entertainment, elucidation, and enlightenment in equal measure. These are new to me, but of course, you may know some or all of them already, in which case you are welcome to marvel at my ignorance.

Rabab — This word was collected quite unexpectedly. I play the accordion in a very ropey folk group, best appreciated from a distance — we specialise in playing for the hard of hearing if you are ever looking for a suitable band.

One of the other members, who is very gifted musically unlike some of the rest of us, turned up with a rather bizarre instrument. Throughout the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia, the word rabab refers to a spike fiddle, one that has a small round or cylindrical body and appears skewered by a narrow neck.

Sadly his playing was drowned out by the racket the rest of us were making, but it added some visual appeal to the group, making us appear rather exotic, and hopefully making up for the auditory deficiencies.

Cretonne — this word turned up in an extraordinary document on the BBC iPlayer, called “Nellie and Nadine at Ravensbrook”, about a lesbian couple who remarkably both survived the horrors of this Nazi concentration camp. It was used when describing some clothing, and it means a heavy cotton fabric, typically with a floral pattern printed on one or both sides, often used for upholstery.

On the buses

A bit like buses, sometimes you don’t see a new word for ages, and then along come five at once, as was the case with this article on poetry by E.A Colquitt, which includes a lovely ghazal poem -

Ghazal- a beautiful and complex Middle Eastern form of poetry

Bahr — a strict metre that becomes, in English, a set number of syllables in a line

Radif — a repeated word or phrase, resulting in this rhyme scheme: AA, bA, cA, dA, eA

Villanelle — also known as a villanesque, is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately at the end of each subsequent stanza until the last stanza, which includes both repeated lines.

Sestina — a poem with six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet, all stanzas having the same six words at the line ends in six different sequences.

Moving on from poetry to other discoveries, you may also enjoy the following specimens collected from a variety of sources.

Jorts- a new fashion trend, jorts are in-thing for summer 2023 which is nearly over in the UK (if it ever arrived) — jorts are extra-long shorts with a thick seam, sported by lots of celebs. I am not a follower of celebs, or fashion come to that, as anyone who knows me will be well aware.

Scotch Bonnett- this turned up on the BBC TV programme called “MasterChef”, enjoyed by Mrs. Pearce who likes viewing more than cooking. It is also known as Bonney peppers, or Caribbean red peppers and is a variety of chilli pepper named for its supposed resemblance to a Scottish tam o’ shanter bonnet. It is ubiquitous in West Africa as well as the Caribbean. Like the closely related habanero, Scotch bonnets have a heat rating of 100,000–350,000 Scoville units. For comparison, most jalapeño peppers have a heat rating of 2,500 to 8,000 on the Scoville scale.

Inchoate — this word turned up in “Perfect Wives In Ideal Homes” by Virginia Nicholson, that Mrs. Pearce is reading — I will make no further comment on the choice of book as I am in enough trouble already. It is an adjective meaning just begun, and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary; confused or incoherent. Of an offence, such as incitement or conspiracy, it means anticipating or preparatory to a further criminal act, such as forgetting to put the bins out.

Chiasmus — I had heard of this word before but typically had forgotten its meaning. The word turned up in this really excellent article by Malky McEwan which I would thoroughly recommend to any lover of words and language -

A chiasmus is a rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order. An example for the romantic readers among you would be -

“Never let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You.”

Saippuakivikauppias — this amazing 19-letter bonus word from Malky’s article is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s longest palindromic word. A good one to drop into conversation at a dinner party and profess astonishment that your guests don’t know what it means. It is Finnish for a dealer in lye, which I also had to look up, and is another word for caustic soda.

Deprecated — this word was used in a Medium description of the new earning formula, and the way the “referred member” system has been treated — the word means something regarded as obsolete because it has been superseded.

Fegan — this portmanteau neologism was coined by the writer Barbara Ellen in an “Observer” article, meaning fake vegan. She refers to “fair-weather vegans”, people who perhaps fail to go the whole hog if you like. There has been recent speculation that after rapid growth, the number of new vegans may have plateaued, with some fake meat companies reporting a drop in sales during the cost-of-living crisis.

Ream — as a noun, this means 500 sheets of paper or a large quantity of something. However, I came across it used as a verb in J.G. Ballard’s autobiography, “Miracles of Life”- I try to improve myself but am making little progress.

So to ream is to enlarge the bore of a gun — Ballard lived in Shanghai as a child, which included being interned for two years, during the Japanese invasion, and he saw soldiers cleaning out and reaming their guns.

The following words have been collected from the same book -

Venturi — a short piece of narrow tube between wider sections for measuring flow rate or exerting suction.

Bushido- the code of honour and morals developed by the Japanese samurai.

Amah — a nursemaid or maid in East Asia or India.

Godown — in eastern Asia, especially India, a warehouse. So if you live on a hill in India, you could go down to a godown. Sorry — these things amuse me.

Congee — in Chinese cooking, a broth or porridge made from rice.

Do share any favourite new words of your own in the comments.

As always, thank you for reading.

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