Old word no longer used

Archaic
– are
old and no longer used words; obsolete
– no
longer used because something new was invented. Obsolete words have
completely gone out of use.

Archaic
and obsolete words stand close to the “learned” words,
particularly to the modes of poetic diction. Learned words and
archaisms are both associated with the printed page. Yet, many
learned words may also be used in conversational situations. This
cannot happen with archaisms, which are restricted to the printed
page. These words are moribund, already partly or fully out of
circulation. Their last refuge is in historical novels and in poetry
which is rather conservative in its choice of words.

Thou
[θаu]
– (ты)
and
thy
[ðai]
– (твой),
aye [ai]
– (‘yes’) and nay
[nei]
– (‘no’) are certainly archaic and long since rejected by
common usage, yet poets use them even today.

Numerous archaisms can be found in Shakespeare,
but it should be taken in consideration that what appear to us today
as archaisms in the works of Shakespeare, are in fact examples of
everyday language of Shakespeare`s time.

Further
examples of archaisms are: morn
(for
morning),
eve (for
evening),
errant (for
wandering,
e.g.
errant
knights),
etc.

Sometimes
an archaic word may undergo a sudden revival. So, the formerly
archaic kin
(for
relatives;
one`s family)
is
now current in American usage.

1. Professional terminology

Hundreds
of
thousands of words belong to special scientific, professional or
trade terminological systems and are not used or even understood by
people outside the particular speciality. Every field of modern
activity has its specialized vocabulary, and similarly special
terminologies for psychology, music, management, finance, economics,
jurisprudence, linguistics and many others.

Term, as traditionally understood, is a word or a word-group
which is specifically employed by a particular branch of science,
technology, trade or the arts to convey a concept peculiar to his
particular activity.

So,
share,
bank, balance sheet are
finance terms; court,
lawyer, civil law are
legal terms; and top
manager, creative team, motivation are
used
in management.

There
are
several controversial
problems
in the field of terminology. The first
is
the question whether a term loses its terminological status when it
comes into common usage. Today this is a frequent occurrence, as
various elements of the media of communication (TV, radio, magazines,
etc.) ply people with scraps of knowledge from different scientific
fields, technology and the arts. It is quite natural that under
circumstances numerous terms pass into general usage without losing
connection with their specific fields.

There
are linguists in whose opinion terms are only those words which have
retained their exclusiveness and are not known or recognized outside
their specific sphere. From this point of view, words associated with
the medical sphere, such as unit
(доза
лекарственного
препарата),
theatre (операционная), contact (носитель
инфекции) are
no longer medical terms as they are in more or less common usage.

There
is yet another point of view, acording to which any terminological
system is supposed to include all the words and word-groups conveying
concept peculiar to a particular branch of knowledge, regardless of
their exclusiveness. Modern research of various terminological
systems has shown that there is no impenetrable wall between
terminology and the general language system. To the contrary,
terminologies seem to obey the same rules as other vocabulary strata.
Therefore, exchange between terminological systems and the “common”
vocabulary is quite normal, and it would be wrong to regard a term as
something “special” and standing apart.

Two
other controversial problems deal with polysemy
and
synonymy. According
to some linguists, an “ideal” term should be monosemantic
(i.e.
it should have only one meaning). Polysemantic
terms
may
lead to misunderstanding, and that is a serious shortcoming in
professional communication. This requirement seems quite reasonable,
yet facts of the language do not meet it. There are numerous
polysemantic terms. In the terminology of painting, the term colour
may
denote hue
(цвет)
and,
at
the
same time, stuff
used for colouring (краска).

The same is true about synonymy in
terminological systems. There are scholars who insist that terms
should not have synonyms because, consequently, scientists and other
specialists would name the same objects and phenomena in their field
by different terms and would not be able to come to any agreement.
This may be true. But, in fact, terms do possess synonyms.

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Thursday, September 52 min read

This is a policy truly in development. Thus this page includes many aspects of reasoning and discussion which may later be removed for conciseness.

This «policy» will be renamed, if necessary, as appropriate when the current debate resolves. It may well be renamed to something like «Inclusion and Classification of Old Words». Until then it will remain at this «page address».

Policy for inclusion of old words[edit]

• obsolete, archaic and unfashionable/dated terms and meanings are to be included in Wiktionary.

People reading a text from an earlier era should be able to refer to Wiktionary to find the meaning of a word it employs when either meaning or word has since fallen out of general use. (And its having fallen out of use may itself be helpful to know.) This guideline applies whether the term is peculiar to the court of Queen Elizabeth I or to the punk scene of the 1980s.

Note: Such terms are still subject to WT:CFI, so it does not justify including a word that was only used by a very small group and only published in a single publication of limited readership.

Classifications of old words[edit]

The following tags are not intended to dictate whether or how to use the tagged entries, but to inform the reader of the modern rarity and possible connotations within modern contexts.

Old English[edit]

Old English words (ISO 639-3 language code ang), used before 1100 C.E., are so differently spelt from current spelling, or completely different in meaning, as to be virtually a foreign language to modern English speakers. Entries for such terms are treated as foreign words with the L2 language heading ==Old English==, categorized within Category:Old English language, and defined with a modern English translation. No “(archaic)”, “(obsolete)”, or “(dated)” tags are used.

Middle English[edit]

Middle English words (ISO 639-3 language code enm), used between circa 1100 C.E. and circa 1500 C.E., are also regarded as words from a foreign language. Entries for such terms are given an L2 language header of ==Middle English==, classified within Category:Middle English language, and defined with a modern English translation. No “(archaic)”, “(obsolete)”, or “(dated)” tags are used.

Obsolete[edit]

No longer in use; found only in very old texts. Can also apply to a no longer understood sense of a word. Examples: perdifoil, “to pay” sense of yield.

Virtually no one would currently use the word or meaning; and very few would understand the word or meaning, whether spoken or written.

Archaic[edit]

No longer in general use, but still found in some contemporary texts (e.g. the Bible). Examples: thou (singular second-person subject; «you»), œconomy.

Generally understood by educated people, but rarely used in current texts or speech.

Unfashionable/Dated[edit]

Still in use, but generally only by older people, and considered unfashionable or superseded, particularly by younger people. Examples: wireless (in sense «broadcast radio tuner»), groovy, gramophone, gay (in the senses of «bright», «happy» etc.).

Please keep in mind that what may be considered «unfashionable» or «dated» in one region may not be in another (example: «strange or weird» definition of queer, dated in most areas but still current in Scotland and Ulster), so where possible please include regional information. If in doubt, make a Usage Note stating that the term may be considered unfashionable or dated in some areas. (See also WT:NPOV.)

Historical[edit]

The labels «obsolete», «archaic», «dated» and so forth concern the term itself. It is important to distinguish these labels from the «historical» label, which is used for terms that describe an object or concept which no longer exists or is not current. Examples: Czechoslovakia, raphigraph, or phlogiston.

The term is still used by modern authors who need to refer to the superseded object or concept. Modern texts will generally define the term at its first use.

Tagging words and meanings with “archaic” or “obsolete” or “dated”[edit]

To tag definitions in entries:

• {{lb|xx|obsolete}} tags and categorises as (obsolete)
• {{lb|xx|archaic}} tags and categorises as (archaic)
• {{lb|xx|dated}} tags and categorises as (dated)

Where xx is the relevant language code. As well as tagging words or meaning with “archaic”, “obsolete” or “dated”, it would be helpful to indicate the era in which the word fell into this classification of usage. For example:

• (archaic) — Shakespearean era
• (archaic) — 1920s
• (dated) — 1960s
• (unfashionable) — 1990s

To tag things that aren’t definitions, such as links to other entries, use {{q}} instead and omit the language code.

Limit of Wiktionary’s scope[edit]

• see the definitions in archaic and obsolete and Old English
• see the category definitions in Category:English terms with archaic senses, Category:English terms with obsolete senses

This policy and the category definitions should be aligned at least. And hopefully aligned with common dictionary usage of the terms «archaic» and «obsolete», to be reflected in the entries archaic and obsolete.

• as a dynamic new technology dictionary we will need to «invent» a meaning for «unfashionable» (or dated) that meets our needs. Previous technology dictionaries were less able to classify this kind of word, and thus may not have had a precise word/meaning to use for our purposes.

See also[edit]

• {{obsolete spelling of}}

The word-stock of a language is in an increasing state of change. Words change their meaning and sometimes drop out of the language altogether. New words spring up and replace the old ones. Some words stay in the language a very long time and do not lose their faculty of gaining new meanings and becoming richer and richer polysemantically. Other words live but a short time and are like bubbles on the surface of water — they disappear leaving no trace of their existence.

In every period in the development of a literary language one can find words which will show more or less apparent changes in their meaning or usage, from full vigor, through a moribund state, to death, i. e. complete disappearance of the unit from the language.

The beginning of the aging process when -the word becomes rarely used. According to Galperin, such words are called obsolescent, i.e. they are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use. To this category first of all belong morphological forms belonging to the earlier stages in the development of the language. In the English language these are the pronouns thou and its forms thee, thy and thine; the corresponding verbal ending –est and the verb-forms art, wilt ( thou makest, thou wilt); the ending -(e)th instead of -(e)s (he maketh) and the pronoun ye.

The second group of archaic words are those that’ have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized by the English-speaking community: e. g. methinks (= it seems to me); nay (=ло). These words are called obsolete.

The third group, which may be called archaic proper , are words which are no longer recognizable in modem English, words that were in use in Old English and which have either dropped out of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they have become unrecognizable, e. g. troth (—faith); a losel (==a worthless, lazy fellow).

The border lines between the groups are not distinct. In fact they interpenetrate. It is specially difficult to distinguish between obsolete and obsolescent words. But the difference is important when we come to deal with the stylistic aspect of an utterance in which the given word serves a certain stylistic purpose. Obsolete and obsolescent words have separate functions, as we shall point out later.

There is still another class of words which is erroneously classed as archaic, viz. historical words. By-gone periods in the life of any society are marked by historical events, and by institutions, customs, material objects, etc. which are no longer in use, for example: Thane, yeoman, goblet, baldric, mace. Words of this type never disappear from the language. They are historical terms and remain as terms referring to definite stages in the development of society and cannot therefore be dispensed with, though the things and phenomena to which they refer have long passed into oblivion. Historical words have no synonyms, whereas archaic words have been replaced by modern synonyms.

Archaic words are primarily and predominantly used in the creation of a realistic background to historical novels. It must be pointed out, however, that the use of historical words (terms) in a passage written in scientific style, say, in an essay on the history of the Danish invasion, will bear no stylistic function at all. But the same terms when used in historical novels assume a different stylistic value. They carry, as it were, a special volume of information adding to the logical aspect of the communication.

This, the main function of archaisms, finds different interpretation in different novels by different writers. Some writers overdo things in this respect, the result being that the reader finds all kinds of obstacles in his way. Others under-estimate the necessity of introducing obsolete or obsolescent elements into their narration and thus fail to convey what is called “local color”.

Besides the function just mentioned, archaic words and phrases have other functions found in other styles. They are, first of all, frequently to be found in the style of official documents. In business letters, in legal language, in all kinds of statutes, in diplomatic documents and in all kinds of legal documents one can find obsolescent words which would long ago have become obsolete if it were not for the preserving power of the special use within the above-mentioned spheres of communication. It is the same with archaic and obsolete words in poetry. As has already been pointed out, they are employed in the poetic style as special terms and hence prevented from dropping completely out of the language.

Among the obsolescent elements of the English vocabulary preserved within the style of official documents, the following may be mentioned: aforesaid, hereby, therewith, hereinafternamed.

The function of archaic words and constructions in official documents is terminological in character. They are used here because they help to maintain that exactness of expression so necessary in this style. Archaic words and particularly archaic forms of words are sometimes used for satirical purposes. This is achieved through what is called Anticlimax. The situation in which the archaism is used is not appropriate to the context. There appears a sort of discrepancy between the words actually used and the ordinary situation which excludes the possibility of such a usage. The low predictability of an archaism when it appears in ordinary speech produces the necessary satirical effect.

Here is an example of such a use of an archaic form. In Shaw’s play “How He Lied to Her Husband” a youth of eighteen, speaking of his feelings towards a “female of thirty-seven” expresses himself in a language which is not in conformity with the situation. His words are:“Perfect love casteth off fear”.

The stylistic significance of archaic words in historical novels and in other works of fiction (emotive literature—belles-lettres) is different. In historical novels, as has been pointed out, they maintain ‘local color”, i.e. they perform the function of creating the atmosphere of the past. The reader is, as it were, transplanted into another epoch and therefore perceives the use of archaic words as a natural mode of communication.

Not so when archaic words are encountered in a depiction of events of present-day life. Here archaisms assume the function of an SD proper. They are perceived in a twofold function, the typical quality of an SD, viz. diachronically and synchronically.

Stylistic functions of archaic words are based on the temporal perception of events described. Even when used in the terminological aspect, as for instance in law, archaic words will mark the utterance as being connected with something remote and the reader gets the impression that he is faced with a time-honored tradition.

List of References:

Galperin I. R. English Stylistics. Москва, 2014

Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка. «Флинта», 2002

ГуревичВ.В. English stylistics. Стилистика английского языка, 2017

Разинкина Н.М. Функциональная стилистика английского языка. — М.: Высшая школа, 1989.