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Favourite Words

mind games and funny bones
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320 posts • Page 17 of 22 • 1 ... 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 ... 22

Re: Favourite Words

Postby NormanD » Thu Oct 14, 2010 10:02 pm

Ted wrote: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)
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Chris P » Thu Oct 14, 2010 10:30 pm

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
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Pete Fowler » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:10 pm

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.
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby DavidM » Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:27 pm

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.)
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Hugh Weldon » Mon Oct 18, 2010 5:15 pm

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.
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Pete Fowler » Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:46 pm

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.
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Mighty Joe » Thu Nov 04, 2010 2:47 pm

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"
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby AndyM » Tue Nov 09, 2010 10:07 am

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".
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Des » Tue Nov 09, 2010 10:32 am

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.
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby NormanD » Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:50 pm

Just reminds me of Mike Nesmith's "Tantamount To Treason".
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Des » Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:39 pm

While on the subject, Propinquity.
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby taiyo no otosan » Thu Nov 18, 2010 6:24 am

I learnt a new word today.

callipygous

It wasn't used in relation to me, I should add.
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Des » Thu Nov 18, 2010 2:24 pm

Reading a botanical article this lunchtime, I came across dehisce.
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby AndyM » Thu Nov 18, 2010 2:34 pm

What's that then?
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Re: Favourite Words

Postby Chris P » Thu Nov 18, 2010 5:57 pm

dehiscing of summer lawns
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