Love, when you hold me in your sway,
the Jersey barriers of the everyday
Maddeningly dissolve away--
All that's concrete loses traction.
And every word with which I'd say
A simple thing in a certain way,
Turns to a Latinate fotheringay.
Love, you drive me to abstraction.
______
I was mildly pleased by the ditty above until the OED revealed that it does not consider "fotheringay" to be a word. Why then is it in my mental glossary as a synonym for frippery? Am I channeling a character out of a nineteenth century novel? Am I simply insane? Has anyone else heard this word?
posted by Reen |link| 0 comments
