>But which category
daleh, I have to say that I think your three categories are waaay too simplistic. for example, I'd have to break "snooty" into: abstruse, absurd, arcane, ambiguous, amphigoric, archaic, doubtful, enigmatic, esoteric, incomprehensible, inexplicable, inkhorn, inscrutable, jargonish, mysterious, nonce, nonsense, obsolete, occult, opaque, pedagogical, pedantic, rare, recondite, unbelievable, unclear, undefined, unfathomable, unintelligible, and vague (off the top of my head).
pundigrion, the probable forebear of pun, is merely obsolete; where used the meaning can be easily determined from context.
"A few days [we] passed at Liverpool..; and had it been quite sure that we should have found you at no inconvenient season, perhaps I might have crossed the river; in which case had there come on a storm, so as to endanger the ferry-boat, I could not have prayed to the Lord to have Mersey upon me! What a face of abomination you will make at that pundigrion!"
- Robert Southey, letter to C. W. Wynn, Esq. M.P. (1808)
-joe (snooty) friday
