Thanks, now I have a mental image of the author as a late middle aged man in a drab brown office, working for a low-rent paper, sitting behind a desk with an old computer that hasn't changed since '98, leaning back and doing crosswords in between writing articles lamenting today's youths and technology. With maybe a overcoat and beaten up fedora hanging up behind him. He smiles slightly while working on the puzzle, hornswoggle, that's the one he's going to sneak into the next article.

I wouldn’t call it archaic, but more folksy. I think most people would understand it, but would rarely encounter it outside a humorous context. It’s pretty similar to bamboozle, except that’s gained kind of a “cute” connotation in recent years (due to pet memes, etc.) that hornswoggle doesn’t have.