Favourite Words

[NormanD]

Chronotransduction.

I'm pretty sure Carla Bley made this up.

I'm sure she did too. If so, she may have been influenced by harmolodics (which I'm pretty sure Ornette made up)

[Chris P]

Gridal

apparently it means raucous according to Nick Evans (Soft Machine, Keith Tippett group etc)

Edit : however I can find no online dictionary definition, so I now reckon Elton Dean coined it for the purpose of his "Gridal Suite" composition, & Nick defined it after: but I may be wrong !

I remember Nick dropping by on bicycle several times to visit some musicians I was sharing a house with in the early 80s, he was well-liked by all

[Pete Fowler]

Des asked for an explanation of the last three lines of The Windhover:

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Doesn’t surprise me. And even an old nag like the one over make the dullest soil shine: just the way things are....and when the fire goes out, wow, dig the colours, man.

[DavidM]

Thanks for that, Pete. It's really so simple once you break it down a bit. The sheer energy in Hopkins' language always amazes me. I think it was Ezra Pound who wrote that poetry was "language charged to it's fullest." There you go.

(From the Scopitones of a few weeks ago to Gerald Manley Hopkins ! This forum covers a lot of ground.)

[Hugh Weldon]

I don't think Des actually asked for an explanation Pete, it was more me thinking about how I would have tried to paraphrase it had Hopkins ever come up on the syllabus in my teaching days - he didn't fortunately, and I doubt I'd have been able to come up with something as neat as that myself.

Some questions remain, but that's what makes poetry interesting I guess. Not knowing much about birds of prey I find it hard to visualise precisely the correlation between the burning embers/broken sods and the actions of the bird, particularly the focus on colour.

The 'no wonder of it' is ironic? - he's making it sound wonderful.

The dedication 'to Christ our Lord', the bird a Christ-figure? - crucifixion references ('fall', 'gall', 'gash') in the final line?

I think Empson did the classic essay on this, must look it up.

[Pete Fowler]

Agree, David....the energy is unbelievable...it's when you read the thing out aloud, and are suddenly aware of the internal rhymes, and the machine-gun blasts from the alliterations - when you hit on the rhythm of the thing - that you start to see it for what it is. An acid idea realised on speed...

Hugh, I don't know what it means, I was only being a bit smart-arsey. If it's Hopkins, and if it's dedicated to the guy on the cross, as it is, then the glory of God is right in there somewhere; and I'm sure you're right and that the words you hit on are meant as hints of nights in Calvary.

[Mighty Joe]

Paraprosdokian -

A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to re-frame or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect.

"Women will never be equal to men - until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut and still think they are sexy"

[AndyM]

Tantamount.


Impossible to use without becoming (marvellously) a harrumphing Victorian paterfamilias.

Also, part of one of the best-ever names in 'Round the Horne' - "My name is Lord Tantamount Horseposture".

[Des]

Oh yes very much so, think I might have even put that one forward myself at one point. You have made it much clearer to me why I like it so much.

[NormanD]

Just reminds me of Mike Nesmith's "Tantamount To Treason".

[Des]

While on the subject, Propinquity.

[taiyo no otosan]

I learnt a new word today.

callipygous

It wasn't used in relation to me, I should add.

[Des]

Reading a botanical article this lunchtime, I came across dehisce.

[AndyM]

What's that then?

[Chris P]

dehiscing of summer lawns