Chris Williams joins us to talk about the most underused words that should come back in 2025, then Jer shares three stories to know around Detroit.
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Hello, and welcome to the new week! And, welcome to your Daily Detroit. It is Monday, January 13th, 2025.
Today, we're gonna discuss ten of the most underused words that maybe should come back in 2025, as decided by Wayne State University. Chris Williams will join me to talk about them. Then, three things to know around town.
I'm Jer Staes. Thanks for choosing to spend time with us today on your Daily Detroit, and let's just jump into it.
Joining us from the beautiful studio at TechTown is Chris Williams, Assistant Director of Editorial Services in Wayne State's Office of Marketing and Communications. And that long title is behind something very fun, which is the 16th year of Wayne State's Word Warriors program with their long lost, but not completely forgotten, words. These are words that we want to bring back. We want to inject them back into conversation because, frankly, we need them in 2025. Don't we, Chris?
I think we do. We need to have a little bit of fun with our conversations. We need to have something that sounds a little more poetic and makes our conversations bounce a little bit more.
What captures you about putting together this list? I know this is the 16th year. This is not something that you started, but now you carry the torch for it. What gets you excited about long lost words?
I think what gets me really excited is the way that they add so much poetry to our language. It's very easy to use the very basic words so that everyone knows what you're saying. But when you have some words out there that no one has heard before, that, maybe if they read them, they have to jump to a dictionary and look up, that is really fun. And, it makes conversation so much more fun, so much richer.
It just adds a lot of depth to the language. And I love seeing what we come up with every year. What words stick around and hearing people use them in conversation over the course of the year.
I know some people don't feel this way, but I feel very excited when I learn a new word. If I have to go look something up, I don't look at it as an affront in any way. I look at it as an opportunity, and it's just so much fun to use the right word.
When you have to add six or seven words to get to the one word that would actually, accurately describe what you're trying to do, that's a good thing.
And it's so great, too, when there is a word that encompasses about 10 different words. And if you'd be using that, if you wanted to describe it without that word, you'd be using 10 or, you know, 12 different words to kind of say exactly what you want to say, and then you find that one word that ties it all together. It's great.
In the same way, when I'm reading, I will highlight something on my Kindle or underline it in the book, jump right to the dictionary, because I love learning that. That's a lot of fun. That's part of the fun of reading.
Well, let's go through these ten words. I'm excited. Correct me if I pronounced something incorrectly, or I might just throw the white flag and let you do it. Ensorcelled?
Do I have that correct?
Ensourcelled, that's perfect.
And you can kind of hear what it is in the middle of that word. So, it's the idea of being enchanted or bewitched, and you can probably hear sorcery in the middle of that. And yeah, I love that. It's a very pretty word, I think.
I can say I like something; I'm bewitched by something, but ensourcelled sounds a little bit more magical.
I also think it belongs in the script of Wicked.
I think so too. I think we should go back and make that recommendation before part two comes out.
And how would you use ensorcelled?
I would use ensorcelled to say something really captivated me. So, if my wife makes some chocolate chip cookies, I'm ensorcelled by those chocolate chip cookies. I'm going to think about them all day.
I'm gonna try that this weekend and see see how it goes.
Not just word tips, but relationship tips here in Daily Detroit. ... Honeyfuggles.
Honeyfuggle. Yeah, that is to ingratiate or seek to ingratiate oneself to someone in order to cheat them or deceive them.
Oh, scandalous!
When I looked this word up to kind of understand the etymology of it, it is this old English word fudgel, which means to cheat. But, then you add honey to it, and it's the idea, "oh, they're going to sweeten you up so they can take advantage of that." It's cheating someone with a smile on your face.
Wow, I think a lot of people have been through life and had somebody honeyfuggle them.
I think so too.
And you would use this in the way of?
I would think of a politician, really.
They're honeyfuggling people. They are smiling, they're giving promises, but they really want to exploit that and take advantage of that person.
Now this next word has been a long time favorite of mine and might be one of the reasons why I like hit send on the email for this conversation. Hurkle-durkle.
Hurkle-durkle is the word I cannot stop hearing about over this last week. People are hearing about it and they love it.
I had never heard of this word and someone submitted it last year and I loved it as soon as I heard it and I have not stopped thinking about it. It's the idea of sleeping in when you probably need to get up. I've yelled at my son several times this week for hurkle-durkling too much.
See, I believe that my dog hurkle-durkles all day.
Well, does he have to get up for anything?
I mean, she does have to get up to, like, go outside, and that's about it.
Okay, as long as they're not missing anything, they're not really hurkle-durkling, then, because it's staying in bed long past the point when you should be getting up.
So if you got nothing to do, you're not really hurkle-durkling.
Would you hurkle-durkling past your alarms?
Yes, you would absolutely hurkle-durkle past your alarms.
All right, this one, correct me if I'm wrong, inure. I N U R E. Inure. Is that correct?
Yep, you're batting a thousand right here, and that is the idea to get used to something, to become accustomed to something. And as someone was talking to me today, they brought up the fact that we're trying to inure people to these words, to get them to use them in language.
Now, one thing I notice in these notes is that it's sometimes something unpleasant that you are getting used to.
Yes. Do you mean the words in general?
Well, so ... inure, it gets accustomed to something, especially something unpleasant.
Yes. Yeah, so you stopped noticing it after a while. And I think the example we used in the sentence was the idea of how television used to be very PG. And people used to ... you know, there were words you couldn't say on TV. And over time, we've kind of become inured to that. I sit down and watch something with my kids, and I'm like, oh, wow, they let that slip by. But, I've become used to that; I've become inured to it.
I've become inured to my mother-in-law or something like that.
All right, how am I supposed to say this one?
Scaramouch.
Scaramouch.
Okay. Is this a new word?
This is an old word. This is a very old word.
Because I can't help but think of a former press secretary, A. Scaramouche. Interesting.
That is very interesting, and actually in searching the etymology of this word, I did find a new story that searches for the word scaramouch did go up quite a bit when Scaramucci was in the news a lot. It is this idea of a cowardly buffoon.
And I don't know if those two things are correlated, but they were in there. Most people are familiar with this word from Bohemian Rhapsody.
Oh, I didn't... I didn't know that was a word. I thought he was being silly.
That was where I had first heard it as well, but it's been around since the 1600s. It was a character in Italian plays way back then.
I ... my mind is blown. Like when you listen to lyrics and you don't listen to the right thing, you know, whether it's a, I think of the, the song "Love Shack" by the B-52. I have no idea if it's tin roof rust. I don't know what the words are.
And that was the situation with that Queen song.
Yeah, they're asking the character of Scaramouch to do the Fandango, a dance.
Shack Baggerly, which I feel like he plays guard for the Pistons
I don't know enough about sports to respond to that one,
but, um ... Shack Bag?
Well, shackbaggerly. There's Shaquille O'Neal. Then you could have shackbaggerly.
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
Shackbaggerly is this idea of something being kind of loose or disorderly, and my mind jumps right to an old shack in the woods.
Okay that's an easy way to remember it. So if somebody is kind of what? Disheveled? That sort of thing?
Yeah, yeah, if they're not really well put together, they're looking kind of shackbaggerly that day.
Alright, as we come into this home stretch, Chris, I'm throwing up the white flag. I can't even. What is this word?
Sonsy is the next word, S-O-N-S-Y. It is an old Gaelic word, and it is the idea of having an attractive and healthy appearance. It comes from a word that meant good fortune or good luck, and it's the idea that you look healthy, attractive, fate has smiled upon your appearance.
So it is the reverse of shackbaggerly.
Yeah, in many ways. In many ways, if you're looking shackbaggerly, you're probably not looking sonsy.
All right. And this next one also, there's a lot of y's. There's three y's in this word, which I am terrified of.
I had to go through three different online searches to figure out how to pronounce this. I can't even pronounce it, and it is syzygy.
All right, let's go together. Syzygy.
Syzygy. You got it.
Okay, I can remember that. Syzygy. All right.
Do that. Yeah, it's pretty much all wise incontinence, and it's a straight line configuration of three celestial bodies.
So you're going to use this very specific usage. You know, so Earth and the Moon and Jupiter are aligned.
I feel like somebody who went to a lot of linguist classes could use that and maybe like as a pick-up line or something of three celestial bodies in a row. It's a syzygy of ...
of people. It's very popular at the astronomer bars.
Like if you're hanging out with Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, that's one a Syzygy. Okay. That's good. Now I know something new. All right. That's great.
Tiffin. Is that correct?
Tiffin. Okay, and it is a light meal often lunch. You know that day you're sitting at the desk, and you pull out the Kit Kat and some crackers? That's your little tiffin for lunch.
So people who are listening to this on their lunch break, but sitting at their desk, tiffin. So you would have a tiffin?
You'd have a tiffin, just a tiny little lunch.
Do you have any idea where that's from? That's an interesting word.
It's British. It's an old British word, and it comes from the idea of sipping. So ... you would be sipping maybe some soup or something.
Oh, okay, okay. All right, and then finally, this one I just really like. It just sounds cool. I feel like there should be a car or something named after this. Vesper.
Vesper. It is an old word, old French word, that means evening. And I was familiar of this from the idea of vesper prayers, vesper church services.
Oh. But a lot of people have already reached out to me to say it's also the name of James Bond's love interest in Casino Royale.
Oh wow! That's great! Oh my I've always been a James Bond fan. Now, I'm gonna have to go back and re-watch that. That is awesome!
You know, we send our newsletter in the evening. So it would be like a Vesper edition or something. How would you use vesper?
I think you would say it's your vesper edition. Yeah, it's the evening edition. I often have heard people talk about sitting in the vesper light, right?
So, you're sitting out there at dusk, and it's getting a little dark. And I just I love the poetry of that word.
It is a good one, and those one or two syllable words have like a clarity to them.
Mm-hmmm.
Which is very nice. Alright, so we're going through these. Do you have a favorite?
I cannot top hurkle-durkle. For something that is to lay in bed and be lazy, it is a very energetic and poppy word. And it's been so much fun.
And what's funny is my kids heard me talking about this earlier this week, and every day they have asked me, am I hurkle-durkle-ing this morning? Did I hurkle-durkle too long? They love saying it because, you know, it rhymes, it bounces a bit. It's a fun word.
After a late vesper, I feel like I need to hurkle-durkle.
If you do it too long, you'll miss your tiffin.
That is so much fun. Chris Williams, if people want to know more about the Word Warriors' things you all are doing, what can they do?
They can go over to wordwarriors.wayne.edu, we have a spot for them to see this list of words and all the definitions, but they can actually click on a list to see every word we have run with for the last 16 years. There are about 500 words on there that they can pick through and experiment with in their writing and their conversation. And if there's something they really like that is not on that list, there's also a button to nominate a word. And we announce them every week on our Word Warriors Facebook page.
Well, I look forward to people checking out that astounding compendium of information. I admit.
I'm looking forward to seeing what we come up with this year as well.
All right. Well, Chris Williams, the Assistant Director of Editorial Services in Wayne State's Office of Marketing and Communications. Thank you so much for coming by the studio.
It is a pleasure, and it was a pleasure to talk to you!
It was great. Thank you for having me.
Bye!
...
Here are three stories to know around Metro Detroit.
I wanted to give you a heads up that MDOT, the Michigan Department of Transportation will close nine miles of eastbound I-696 from Lahser Road to I-75 starting in March. Work should last at least two years as MDOT will reconstruct the entire stretch of freeway and fix 60 bridges. MDOT will detour traffic south on the Lodge, east onto the Davison, then northbound on I-75, and then back to 696. This will be a pretty big headache. This is the third and final phase of MDOT's "Restore the Reuther" project. This third phase will cost $290 million dollars, while the overall cost for all three phases of I 696 construction is pegged at $655 million. MDOT is funding the project through a variety of sources including the Rebuilding Michigan bond program and the federal Reconnecting Communities grant program.
Now to future road work. Federal officials have announced a major infrastructure project for the downriver area. The federal rail administration is providing a $73 million dollar grant to build a bridge over a problematic railroad crossing in Trenton. The crossing on Fort Street has long been a source of delays and safety concerns for locals. The project will separate vehicle traffic from the Canadian National railroad tracks. Up to a dozen trains a day cause big traffic backups and delay emergency vehicles. That work is expected to begin in 2029.
Now finally ... $328 per person. That's what per capita Michiganders spend for legal marijuana, and that makes The Mitten State the country's leader in per person sales total sales. Hit nearly $3.3 billion dollars in 2024 with the Cannabis Business Times saying that the total amount sold since legalization has hit $10 billion dollars. They also report a year over year sales increase of nearly 10 percent while spending the most per capita. Michigan is fourth in raw volume behind California, Colorado, and Washington. Michigan's adult use flower price in December was just under 70 an ounce. More than 40 percent of sales are flower. However there have been a number of closings and consolidations of cultivators and providers as those low prices come with a drag low to non-existent profit margins, a trend to watch according to Crain's Detroit Business, THC-infused beverages. Sales more than doubled in 2024.
Let me know, dailydetroit@gmail.com. How much are you spending per year on cannabis? I'm curious to know about our listeners. I will only share the data as an average, or if you have a note you want me to share with other listeners. I'm very curious about this, and we are done for today.
Thanks behind the scenes to Shianne Nocerini and Luciano Marcon for their help.
If you haven't yet, be sure to tell a friend about Daily Detroit. That's how the project grows, and you very much matter in this. And, it's one thing if i tell people about it, it's another thing and better if you do. Tomorrow, we're doing a little review of the Auto Show with veteran Eric Trytko about what to know and where to go with this annual event. you won't want to miss it.