{"id":1909,"date":"2023-02-09T12:48:31","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T17:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=1909"},"modified":"2023-02-09T13:26:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T18:26:47","slug":"word-of-the-week-gobsmacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2023\/02\/09\/word-of-the-week-gobsmacked\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Gobsmacked"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/02\/gobsmacked.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1910\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/02\/gobsmacked.png\" alt=\"Surprised face\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/02\/gobsmacked.png 225w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/02\/gobsmacked-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a>Any readers from the UK may know this wonderful adjective that first appeared in a 1937 reference, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/243164?isAdvanced=false&amp;result=2&amp;rskey=9K73VR&amp;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the OED<\/a>.\u00a0 It&#8217;s slang, not academic language, but such a colorful term for\u00a0 the more formal &#8220;astonished&#8221; or &#8220;astounded&#8221; that I would never correct a writer for employing it.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/79580?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gob<\/a> in question is a mouth. It&#8217;s of Scottish origin. If you recall the Monty Python &#8220;Argument Clinic&#8221; sketch, where a customer accidentally walks into the room for verbal abuse you&#8217;ll hear &#8220;shut your festering gob&#8221; used as one of many insults hurled around. That was my first encounter.\u00a0 Since then, I have heard &#8220;gobsmacked&#8221; many times in England and Scotland, not so much in Wales (which could be accidental).<\/p>\n<p>Though it suffers from low frequency of use (2 of 8 at the OED) it appeared more in recent trips to the UK. Perhaps it&#8217;s simply too colorful to die out, as it expresses the sort of horror you&#8217;d experience from a slap to the mouth, delivered out of the blue.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t leave me gobsmacked by telling me this word is bound to die. We need more fun slang like this on both sides of The Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p>Special thanks to Dr. Kate Cassada, UR&#8217;s Department of Education, for nominating this word.<\/p>\n<p>Nominate a word students need to learn by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n<p>See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/metaphor-of-the-month\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/word-of-the-week\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image courtesy of Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Any readers from the UK may know this wonderful adjective that first appeared in a 1937 reference, according to the OED.\u00a0 It&#8217;s slang, not academic language, but such a colorful term for\u00a0 the more formal &#8220;astonished&#8221; or &#8220;astounded&#8221; that I would never correct a writer for employing it. The gob in question is a mouth. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2023\/02\/09\/word-of-the-week-gobsmacked\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Word of the Week! Gobsmacked<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[87405,40197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-etymology","category-vocabulary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-uN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1909"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1913,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions\/1913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}