gadzookery

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Concise Dictionary of English Usage.
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The Word of the Day for May 8 is:

gadzookery   \gad-ZOO-kuh-ree\   noun
     British : the use of archaisms (as in a historical novel)

Example sentence:
     "Get rid of the gadzookery," Bruce's editor 
cautioned. "Mirabella can perfectly well say 'please' instead 
of  'prithee.'"

Did you know?
     "Gadzooks . . . you astonish me!" cries Mr. Lenville in 
Charles Dickens' _Nicholas Nickleby_. We won't accuse Dickens of 
gadzookery ("the bane of historical fiction," as historical 
novelist John Vernon called it in _Newsday_ magazine), because 
we assume people actually said "gadzooks" back in the 1830s. 
That mild oath is an old-fashioned euphemism, so it is thought, 
for "God's hooks" (a reference, supposedly, to the nails of the 
Crucifixion). But it's a fine line today's historical novelist 
must toe, avoiding expressions like "zounds" and "pshaw" 
and "tush" ("tushery" is a synonym of the newer "gadzookery," 
which first cropped up in the 1950s), as well as "gadzooks," 
while at the same time rejecting modern expressions such 
as "okay" and "nice."