Good Morning Friends & Digital Neighbors! How about another visit to The Little Book of Lost Words: Collywobbles, Snollygosters, and 86 other surprisingly useful terms worth resurrecting by Joe Gillard. I hope you all had a good weekend and are ready for another run at the week. For those of you who are retired, it is Monday, October 25th, two months before Christmas.
My trip down these word tours is due to Ralph who typically attends daily Mass with his wife Cindy. Ralph is a retired psychiatrist and made a comment one day about me doffing my hat to Cindy. It started a wonderful conversation about obscure words and here we are with a series of books on forgotten and obscure words. Words contain such power, use them well. I have a love-hate relationship with language, I love words, I hate grammar. I enjoy speaking and writing, I hate the verbal blunders I commit and the typos and errors that contaminate my writing. More than likely it is a self-inflicted problem because of my desire to finish too many things in haste. I suspect if I slowed down there would be less, but not zero. My proofreading contains too much "I know what I meant, don't you?" editorializing in my mind. Oh well, a boo & a hoo - let the fudgelling begin!
FUDGEL - Eighteenth century. English. Regional dialect. To pretend to work without actually doing anything.
These day we call them "influencers." Try not to spend the day fudgelling my friends unless you are among the Retired and Content, in which case fudgel all day long!
Today's photo - Sheffield Park Gardens in East Sussex
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
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2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
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