Showing posts with label Frim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frim. Show all posts

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Fadge. Frim. An Oxford English Dictionary Field Trip.

Twelfth Night is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.
Viola is a real badass.
One of the words she uses is "fadge."
This is a cool word.
It is so cool that my professor urged us to get it back into circulation.
My efforts have not yielded much fruit. Maybe this post will change this.
One of my treasured possessions is a 1971 edition of the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. It came with a magnifying glass and everything. And the smell is so "book." Beautiful paper, ink, binding=book smell that engenders bliss. All of the following quotes and definitions are from this tome of wondrousness.
So. Fadge."To fit, suit, be suitable."
Here is one example of how "fadge" was used in George Whetstone’s The Right Excellent Historye of Promos and Cassandra: "Sir, this match fadged frim."
"Frim" is a word I hadn't heard of until I read this example.
So I looked that up, too.
"Frim" is "Vigourous, flourishing, luxuriant in growth, full-fleshed."
So the guy thought that Promos and Cassandra's relationship was going to turn out real well.
A little more research and I found out that this was one of Shakespeare's, uh, "sources" for Measure for Measure.
I'm not going to tell you if the match fadged frim or not, because I don't believe in spoilers. But if anyone asks, I will reveal the ending of the timeless classic Gammer Gurton's Needle.
May we all fadge frim.