New (old) Words
Listed here are forgotten and newly acquired words discovered while reading John Berger's novel G.
"You are beautiful. You have eyes which say everything.
And you have the voice of a corn-crake."
These notes were collected in celebration of John Berger's birthday: November 5, 1926 John Peter Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism, Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a university text. “Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.” ~John Berger I listened to a number of lectures and conversations on YouTube featuring Jon Berger, but this is the one I enjoyed the most ... relating to G. and Jon's progress as a writer. John Berger on the Booker Prize (1972) John Berger talked about the Booker Prize in 1972 on BBC. When accepting the Booker Berger made a point of donating half ...
CARYATID: a stone carving of a draped female figure, used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek or Greek-style building.
ReplyDeleteMAZURKA: a lively Polish dance in triple time
ReplyDeleteMODISTE: a fashionable milliner or dressmaker.
ReplyDeleteSLOE: the small dark globose astringent fruit of the blackthorn
ReplyDeleteTRUCULENT: eager or quick to argue or fight; aggressively defiant
ReplyDeleteIRREDENTIST: a person advocating the restoration to their country of any territory formerly belonging to it
ReplyDeleteQUAYSIDE: The area adjacent to a quay or wharf or a system of quays
ReplyDeleteQUAY: a solid, usually stone, landing-place, where boats are loaded and unloaded
ANACHRONISM: an error in chronology in which a person, object, event, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one
ReplyDeletePHANTASMAGORIC: having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
ReplyDeleteMOLLIFY: appease the anger or anxiety of (someone)
ReplyDeleteAVOCAT: the French word for lawyer
ReplyDeleteQUIXOTIC: exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.
ReplyDeleteTROTTEUR: a woman's tailored garment (as a suit, coat, dress, or hat) suitable for walking or outdoor wear
ReplyDeleteOBSCURANTIST: If you describe something as obscurantist, you mean that it is deliberately vague and difficult to understand, so that it prevents people from finding out the truth about it.
ReplyDeletePRENOM: first name, maiden name
ReplyDeletePLAICE: any of various American flatfishes or flounders
ReplyDeletePROFLIGATE: a licentious, dissolute person
ReplyDeleteRASSEGNATO - Italian word for resigned
ReplyDeletePASSERETTA MIA: Italian for "my little bird"
ReplyDeleteSATURNALIA: an occasion of wild revelry
ReplyDeleteCHIMERA: a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve.
ReplyDeleteHOYDENISH: High-spirited; boisterous
ReplyDeleteNUBILE: Ready for marriage; of a marriageable age
ReplyDeleteLANDAU: a four-wheel carriage with a top divided into two sections that can be folded away or removed and with a raised seat outside for the driver.
ReplyDeleteCOLONNADE: a row of columns supporting a roof, an entablature, or arcade
ReplyDeletePULCINO: chick
ReplyDeleteKRAAL: An enclosure for livestock.
ReplyDeleteMASSIF: A large mountain mass or compact group of connected mountains forming an independent portion of a range.
ReplyDelete