Another of those occasional gems from Merriam Webster’s word of the day - sesquipedalian is sesquipedalian in the same way that all tautologies are tautologies.
sesquipedalian \ses-kwuh-puh-DAIL-yun\ adjective
1 : having many syllables : long
*2 : using long words
Example sentence:
While the writer’s sesquipedalian style can be irksome at times, his novels usually have interesting plots and good character development.
Did you know?
Horace, the Roman poet known for his satire, was merely being gently ironic when he cautioned young poets against using “sesquipedalia verba” — “words a foot and a half long” — in his book Ars poetica, a collection of maxims about writing. But in the 17th century, English literary critics decided the word “sesquipedalian” could be very useful for lambasting writers using unnecessarily long words. Robert Southey used it to make two jibes at once when he wrote “the verses of [16th-century English poet] Stephen Hawes are as full of barbarous sesquipedalian Latinisms, as the prose of [the 18th-century periodical] the Rambler.” The Latin prefix “sesqui-” is used in modern English to mean “one and a half times,” as in “sesquicentennial” (a 150th anniversary).
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
Margot Quan Knight photography - interesting surreal pictures.
Jabberwocky, in the original and also as corrected by Microsoft Word’s spellchecker.
I’m gonna see if I can get all of these down next week. You coming, Jan?
Disregard the previous God post for a moment, I had a feeling that was distinctly religious when I read these suggestions from Modern Drunkard magazine. Now is that scary or what?
Not only does God hate shrimp and cotton-polyester mixes, he also exhorts girls to have sex with their fathers if there are no other eligible males in town.
I really must get around to reading the bible.
Today we invited Gill’s family around for a mother’s day meal - cooked lots of good Spanish(-ish) food: a paella (not quite sure whether they make tofu paella in Spain, but hey…) with some chorizo (cooked in Fino sherry) on the side, patatas bravas (almost), octopus salad (with dill, caperberries, rocket and red onion). Got rather drunk on a mixture of Cava, sparkling Tempranillo, other red wines and Don PX raisiny-sweet sherry.
And then I came downstairs to make some address labels for June (Gill’s mum). While I was doing it, Rowan and Lola kept interrupting me, but for some reason rather than speaking to them I found myself singing everything in a tune which had just come into my head, but which soulded like it ought to have come from Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (I could just imagine it accompanied by a washboard and some kazoos). It sounded a little like this (actually, it sounded a lot better at the time, but these things never work twice).
The blackbirds are singing as though it were really spring. Or do they always do that at this time in the morning?
Hang on, tomorrow is really spring. Thank christ for that. How come the birds knew and I didn’t?
And underneath the magpie tree, I found something which looked like a crow’s heart. Fresh. Almost beating.
And more photos… this time from the FAD team’s trip to a private view.
Added some more photos, from our leap-day walk near Wigtwizzle.
Today I have been mostly trying to educate rednecks on some American-Spanish right-winger’s blog (the comments you want to look out for are the ones from Dan [me, duh] and B’wana [my self-appointed nemesis]).
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