Message-ID: <18803248.1075846819543.JavaMail.evans@thyme>
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 09:14:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: susan.scott@enron.com
To: gary.stadler@enron.com
Subject: WORD OF THE DAY
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The Word of the Day for April 7 is:=20

                  gadzookery =01=07 \gad-ZOO-kuh-ree\ =01=07 (noun)=20
                  : the use of archaisms (as in a historical novel)=20

                  Example sentence:
                  "Get rid of the gadzookery," Bruce's editor cautioned.
                  "Mirabella can perfectly well say 'please' instead of=20
'prithee.'"=20

                  Did you know?
                  "Gadzooks . . . you astonish me!" cries Mr. Lenville in=
=20
Charles
                  Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. We won't accuse Dickens of
                  gadzookery ("the bane of historical fiction," as historic=
al=20
novelist
                  John Vernon called it in Newsday magazine), because we
                  assume people actually said "gadzooks" back in the 1830s.
                  That mild oath is an old-fashioned euphemism, so it is=20
thought,
                  for "God's hooks" (a reference, supposedly, to the nails =
of=20
the
                  Crucifixion). But it's a fine line today's historical=20
novelist must
                  toe, avoiding expressions like "zounds" and "pshaw" and=
=20
"tush"
                  ("tushery" is a synonym of the newer "gadzookery," which=
=20
first
                  cropped up in the 1950s), as well as "gadzooks," while at=
=20
the
                  same time rejecting modern expressions such as "okay" and
                  "nice."