Friday Vocabulary

1. clarigation — solemn demand for redress made through heralds prior to declaration of war Despite their important mission, the members of the clarigation delegation were not immune to the siren song of the boogie woogie.   2. swadkin — diminutive of “swad” meaning country bumpkin, lout “Stop pressing that button, you pestiferous swadkin! Cannot …

Friday Vocabulary

1. trow — to believe, to trust “The parson would never indulge in such reprehensible behavior, as I trow.”   2. theodolite — portable surveying instrument with telescopic sight for measuring horizontal, and sometimes vertical, angles The aging theodolite rarely was put into service, having been replaced in most mensural functions by wireless computer assisted …

Friday Vocabulary

1. drolatic — humorous, comically strange The drolatic characters and incidents in John Kennedy Toole’s prize-winning novel sometimes conceal and sometimes reveal the deep philosophic roots of this posthumously published fiction.   2. jodhpurs — riding pants cut very loosely over the hips and thighs with a tight fit from the calf to the ankle …

Friday Vocabulary UPDATED

NOTE: Due to recently (24 June 2019) discovered repetition of a previously used vocabulary word, the offending entry has been replaced with a new word, definition, and example sentence. The original entry is preserved with strikethrough formatting. 1. marmoreal — resembling marble or a marble statue His newly clean-shaven face accentuated his marmoreal visage as …

Friday Vocabulary

1. pelican crossing — pedestrian crosswalk in which pedestrians press buttons illuminating lights to stop vehicular traffic [has nothing to do with aquatic birds] On the weekends it was obvious that normal stop lights should have been installed instead of the pelican crossing, as the continual stream of pedestrians flowing across the avenue from one …

300 Books (Not Really)

Just finished the 300th book that I’ve read since I started tracking just which books I read and complete — though this number has the caveat that it includes comics and graphic novels, which I am not counting in my most strenuous accounting, as discussed in earlier posts here and here. The particular book read …