The very word the suckered Nuncle Z into coming to this board.

Ah, yes. I remember it as though it were only four years ago (link).

Tsuwm introduced himself with this opening salvo: "what is this, a nest of raving prescriptivists??" (link)

There's a Brideshead Revisited moodiness to reading something you wrote a while ago, like looking at your old college survey-course papers.

My attitude towards the e-word has changed. It is a word, though an inelegant one. I don't find it to be an inkhorn term any longer, but more of a dord word. While we're at it, schadenfreude was coined in the 16th century to translate a concept from Seneca: libitinariorum vota 'the prayers of undertakers' (link).

 Quote:
Unius uotum deprehensum est, omnium simile est: An tu Arruntium et Aterium, et ceteros qui captandorum testamentorum artem professi sunt, non putas eadem habere, quae designatores et libitinarios, uota? illi tamen quorum mortes optent, nesciunt: hi familiarissimum quemque, ex quo propter amicitiam rei plurimum est, mori cupiunt; illorum damno nemo uiuit, hos, quisquis differt, exbaurit; optant ergo non tantum, ut accipiant, quod turpi seruitute meruerunt, sed etiam, ut tributo graui liberentur.

[Seneca De beneficiis VI. xxxviii. 4. link)]

One man's vow was excepted at, where all men's are alike. Thinkest thou that Arruntius and Haterius and all others that professed the art of executorship had not the same vows and wishes, as the masters of funeral ceremonies and they who were ministers in burying the dead? yet know not they whose death they wish: they desire that some one of their nearest familiars should die, in whom for friendship sake they had most hope. No man giveth by the loss of those: whosoever differreth the other undoeth them. They therefore wish, not only that they may receive that which they have deserved by base servitude, but also that they may be freed of a grievous tribute.

[Translated by Thomas Lodge 1614, (link)]

The prayer of one man was detected, but it was just like the prayers of all other men. Do you imagine that Arruntius and Haterius, and all other professional legacy-hunters do not put up the same prayers as undertakers and grave-diggers? though the latter know not whose death it is that they wish for, while the former wish for the death of their dearest friends, from whom, on. account of their intimacy, they have most hopes of inheriting a fortune. No one's life does the undertaker any harm, whereas these men starve if their friends are long about dying; they do not, therefore, merely wish for their deaths in order that they may receive what they have earned by a disgraceful servitude, but in order that they may be set free from a heavy tax.

[Translated by Aubrey Stewart 1887, (link)]

Ceci n'est pas un seing.