Monday, January 22, 2007

i love words

I just learned two
new words
within mere seconds of one another!

From Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson: "He was so alarmed by the unpalatable image he'd conjured up that he knocked over his tea, not that one more stain could make any difference to a cloth that was a palimpsest of previous tea-related accidents. 'Something wrong, Mr. Brodie?' Binky inquired, mopping up the tea with the hem of her skirt, but before he could reply a cry like a huntsman's tantivy from the top end of the garden announced the arrival of Quintus Rain."

Your assignment (since I am, of course, a teacher) is to use one of these words in an original sentence.*

*optional

5 comments:

Sara Walke said...

Remaining ever hopeful, she refused to admit that this latest tryst would do nothing but further darken the palimpsest that was her heart.
--i've always held the secret fantasy of writing hystrionic romance novels

Klayton said...

There was a great episode on NOVA a few years back about the Archimedes palimpsest, and I actually watched it! (Does that count for homework?)

Marina Eckler said...

i think we could argue the encaustics we just saw are palimpsests. that's a word that i always mean to look up, or maybe i have looked it up and can't accept it's meaning. like the word polemic, i get it now but it took me years of fighting with the meaning.

suesun said...

saelwa - A+!
kek - oh man, whatever happened to intellectual integrity?! ... but, ok, I'll take it 'cause I'm sure you already knew the meaning anyway. interesting link-thanks.
marina- words are elusive in that way.... hermeneutic was my wrestiling opponent for awhile.

Anonymous said...

Meine pal ist eine pimp, yes?