It isn’t often I come across a “new” word. I mean, a goodnew word. Not words that have been redefined, which is what “new” words usually are in this day and age. People simply take a perfectly good word (or name) and redefine it until some of us are nearly afraid to use it. So, like the word I just discovered, really good “new” words are usually old words I’ve just never heard.
Several weeks ago I was reading a book about one of George Washington’s army brigades who earned the name “The Immortals”. The author quoted out of journals he had come across and in one of those entries, a man described the Continental Army as a bunch of “tatterdemalions”.
Now that, I thought, is a fun word. So fun I had to say it aloud. And then look up what it means.
Tatterdemalion: ragged or disreputable in appearance; being in a decayed state or condition; dilapidated
Yes, I would say that is a very good way to describe the Continental Army. And it rather sounds just as it means.
Why don’t we use good words like that anymore?
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