Flapdoodler, roorback, yulehole: Why forgotten words need rescuing from obscurity

As a child, the gift of a dictionary sparked my love of rare words - which snowballed like a hogamadog

Christmas morning. I must have been about seven years old. My grandparents had just arrived at our house and my family's presents were all being excitedly exchanged. At last, they came to me, and my grandmother handed over something that seemed absolutely enormous. It was broad, flat, solid and extraordinarily heavy. With little clue about what to expect, I tore it open and found myself holding a hardback illustrated children's edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Most kids, I am sure, would have rolled their eyes. Enthusiasm would have been feigned and the book would have been subtly placed to one side in favour of a Nintendo Game Boy (or whatever the gift of choice was in the early 90s). But for me - nerdish, bookish, studious - this was, without doubt, a perfect gift.