In this age of shrinking vocabularies it’s fun to go against the current and use as large a variety of words as possible. Especially when they sound funny.

Life’s short. Why not have more fun when we’re talking? Have a chortle (laugh).

While modern slang tends toward pop culture references, earlier generations’ slang preferred funny word-substitutes. Your elders probably used them. Maybe you still do, leaving others flabbergasted (astonished). No; this isn’t just a bunch of malarkey and I’m not simply bloviating.

They’re still in the dictionary, so let’s revive them:

Bamboozled. To fool or trick someone (1600s). Origin unknown; possibly from Scottish “bumbaze” (confound) or French “embabouiner” (make a baboon of).

Catawampus, cattywampus. Askew, awry. In the 1800s it meant completely or utterly. One etymological explanation is the Greek “kata” (downward, toward), and Scottish slang “wampish” (to wriggle or twist about), although how those got together is anybody’s guess.

Discombobulated. Confused, disconcerted and embarrassed (1800s). Allegedly to mock Latin although I can’t find the Latin words it mocked.

Lollygag. To waste time, dawdle, dilly-dally (that one’s fun, too). In the mid-19th century it also meant to fool around (yes, that kind). Here’s one quote shared by Michigan Radio from an Iowa newspaper in 1868:

“The lascivious lollygagging lumps of licentiousness who disgrace the common decencies of life by their love-sick fawnings at our public dances."

That’s sure not what Grandad meant when he’d tell me to quit lollygagging around.

Kerfuffle, hullabaloo, and brouhaha. Commotion or uproar; a fuss. Expressing something divisive that generates tense conversation and conflict is starting a brouhaha. Kerfuffle and hullabaloo are similar, but toned down a bit.

Skedaddle. Leave quickly. Or as they said in Texas, “git.” If you start a kerfuffle you might want to skedaddle.

Pettifogger. Lawyers stereotyped in bad TV – the kind who’ll do anything to score a client or a win. Nineteenth century; from British “scaddle” (to run in fright), possibly deriving from similar Middle English and Old Norse words meaning fierce or wild.

Sozzled. Drunk. Hammered. It just sounds sillier, like drunks. In the 1830s sozzle meant to mix sloppily.

Mollycoddle. Spoil, indulge. These days it can refer to anybody, often used with children. In the early nineteenth century it mostly described coddled male adults.

Hoosegow. Jail. Getting too sozzled could land you in the hoosegow. From Mexican juzgao or juzgado (tribunal; the “j” is pronounced like “h”).

Lackadaisical. Lazy, lacking enthusiasm. What Mrs. Language Person, that snitty ol’ biddy, (snitty: disagreeable; biddy: annoying elderly woman) calls those who don’t care about grammar. Say it three times slowly; ain’t that more fun than “lazy”?

Flibbertigibbet. Today, we might call a flibbertigibbet (pronounced “jibbet”) flighty. Which is a lot more boring to say. Shakespeare, that creator of so many of our more interesting words, is credited with inventing this word that sounds like the nonsense its namesakes might utter.

Bloviate. What windbags do if they boast aimlessly. If this column seems to ramble on, you’d accuse the writer of bloviating. Ramble is fun to say, but it doesn’t conjure the same image of blowing hot air.

Speaking of which, time to vamoose. Got to make hay while the sun shines.

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network who knows these don’t amount to a hill of beans and couldn’t give a tinker. Email sholeh@cdapress.com.