Those in the know try a little trow

By Ruth Wajnryb
December 4, 2004

In Victorian England, the upper class used to enjoy believing that it was only the great unwashed who used foul language. Meanwhile, their upper-stratum lexicon amply served their own swearing needs. Back then, you were using fighting words if you called a man "an insufferable young puppy" or "an unmitigated cad" or, for a slightly less awful cad, just dropped the "unmitigated". But never anything remotely stronger or cruder. "Bastard", for instance, simply wouldn't do, as it rang uncomfortably literal for too many wannabe blue-bloods.

Words such as "cad" and "cur" are no longer common parlance. It's not that curs and cads are no longer to be found - I've known many but never called them that. The cad lives on, it's just his label that has slipped.

Dictionaries flag such words as "archaic". But they don't want your pity for they live there quite happily. While their productive use is way down, we still encounter them - in old books, period-piece films and plays. In a recent TV show, Confessions of a Cad, about one of Princess Diana's, er, paramours - the one to whom young Harry bears an uncanny resemblance - the word "cad" was liberally applied.

I, for one, am sad at times to see words relegated to the "archaic" heap and would happily mandate their resurrection if I thought my ruling would have any sway. But language doesn't operate like that. Far too unruly and headstrong.

Still, it's worth a try, I trow, don't you? "Trow" is an intransitive verb that means "believe", "think", "suppose" or "trust". It is derived from an old Indo-European root ("deru"), meaning "to be firm", a form that also serves as the source of words such as "truth", "trust" and "betroth". Next time you want to muse in public, share your thoughts, consider your beliefs, try a "trow" for a change. Your meaning should be clear from your context and your interlocutors may be very impressed.

Another one that is sorely missed is "verily". From Latin ("verax", truthful), it moved to Old French ("verai", true) and then Middle English ("verraily", very). Yes, you may protest, we have good old "very" - what need is there for something more? However, "verily" is not identical to "very". It's both an adverb ("and verily did the chains fall from his hands") as well as a sentence adverb (Verily, I say to you). Further, I suspect that "verily" has a strong sense of occasion - you may need to be dressed for the part, as it were. "Very", on the other hand, would go fine with denim.

There's another adverb that has a bygone ring and yet is close enough to Modern English to be readily understood. I refer to old-fashioned "mayhap". Historically, it's a reduction of the phrase "it may hap", from Middle English's "happ", derived from the Old Norse word that means "luck" or "chance". I rather like mayhap - it borrows from "may" in its sense of probability, and from "happenstance" in its wistful nostalgia.

Then there's the trio of "howbeit" (however it may be), "sobeit" (provided that) and good old "albeit" (although it be). Only "albeit" has escaped the lexical dustheap. It's still used, albeit in rather restricted registers. I did once know a builder who barely let an utterance pass without an albeit. I suspect he thought it elevated his language and perhaps it did - that is, if you could abide the mental distraction of a conversation so riddled with concessions.

A lovely book called The Word Museum is subtitled "the most remarkable English words ever forgotten". Its author, Jeffrey Kacirk, laments the sacrifice of the archaic to make way for the neologistic. While I am wont to dispute the causal link, his collection is a pleasurable window on things that used to matter. Such as "glad-warbling" - when was the last time you had use of this word which means "singing or walking joyfully"?