More words

[slemslempike]

I spent the afternoon in the reading room at the library trying to absorb Butler's argument in Bodies that Matter. While I in no way back down from my stance that people who write in library books, even in pencil, should be forcibly tattooed with THOUGHTLESS IDIOT, these bits did amuse me:







And what better framing device for my own list of words I have looked up recently. There are rather fewer than before because I have been reading less of anything, and nothing of Will Self.

Brumaire - Second month of the French revolutionary calendar - the month of mist (October/November)
internecine - mutually destructive conflict
cynosure - a centre of attraction
cicisbeo - admirer of a married woman / knot of ribbon on a fan
labile - unstable, easily changing
paramnesias - false memory
antebellum - period preceding American Civil War
inchoate - not yet completed
aphasia - inability to use or understand language
Keratin - primary protein of hair, skin, nails
Chlamys - short woollen cloak
tabouret - low upholstered stool
colonnade - row of columns
quinquet lamp - where oil resevoir is higher than the flame (apparently same as Argand lamp?)
monism - doctrine that all things are part of the same reality
mimetic - reflective of reality

And other things I've learnt from books:
Sadza is a dish of grain meal, mbodza is underdone/inedible food.
After reading Berlant, who talked about "the cliche that queers are light in the loafers", I am introduced to a new term, which is apparently meant to be about mincing? Anyway. That was a new thing I learned.

With regard to the last post, as you may have worked out from other people's answers, the offical flower of the United Staes is... the rose. Which, apart from being blatant copying (it's totally ours! We had a war of them and everything!), is not a flower I associate with America in the slightest.

I have been trying to learn things about history as well. I made a chart with British monarchs, prime ministers, US presidents, French kings/presidents and Russian Emperors/leaders. 1710-1949. I'm never going to remember any of them, but it did lead to a pleasant Sunday colouring things in. There is not nearly enough colouring in in my life at the moment.

Henry Pelham was succeeded as Prime Minister in 1754 by his brother, the Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. FACT.

Comments

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I'd go with that - I know 'antebellum' entirely from the Civil War context ('the antebellum South') but I think it's generic. Hang on, let me confer with the deity....

*lights incense*

*uses Athens login*

OED sez: Previous to the war, i.e. spec. the American civil war (1861-5), the S. African war (1899- 1902), or either of the wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45.

Interestingly, has also been 'ante bellum' or 'ante-bellum', judging from the usage examples.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Dammit, my institution has INEXPLICABLY ceased its subscription to the OED, or at least I can only get a message saying that my Athens login does not include this service. Even on campus. It's infuriating, though I imagine it has something to do with the Lancashire libraries' subscription, which I can use.

Bellum on its own is "the state of war", isn't it? So ante-bellum makes some sense.