Dead words on the dirty ground

I was listening to the White Stripes the other day and it got me thinking about words that fall out of fashion.

I don't mean names that fall out of fashion (although I do find it interesting to note that 'Ralph' was in the top 25 and 'Florence' was in the top 10 in the year 1900) or objects (like the Walkman and Edsel) that become obsolete, but words that we just don't use that often and have a tinge of age about them.

The song is "Death Letter" and it goes...

"I got a letter this morning
What do you reckon it read?
It said the gal you love is dead"

And I thought 'reckon' is a great word but it's rarely used. Perhaps it sounds a little too southern and too cowboy to be using it up here in Canada. I can imagine Lyle Lovett using it in a conversation, but it would not sound as smooth coming from my mouth.

(Oh, and the internet was kind enough to teach me about the history of "Death Letter Blues" and its composer Son House. And the fact that song is 70 years old.)

The other word I enjoy in the same way is 'wont'. That word, and its meaning, is largely lost. Most people would now read that word as a misspelling of the 'will not' contraction.

Doesn't this sound like a great sentence: "As is his wont, I reckon." I can imagine Sam Elliot uttering it in "The Big Lebowski". I just can't see a business man on Wall Street saying the same thing.