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re: I start this thread with great trepidation
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:40 pm to fr33manator
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:40 pm to fr33manator
quote:it’s from Gulliver’s Travels, though, right?
And brobdingnagian means gargantuan
2
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:41 pm to GreenRockTiger
quote:
it’s from Gulliver’s Travels
Mary Ann was the hottest!
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:42 pm to OWLFAN86
Owlligator
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:43 pm to OWLFAN86
Sesquipedalian…
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:47 pm to Knight of Old
I would like to defenestrate the OP.
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:47 pm to OWLFAN86
Five dollar word: periphrastic / periphrasis
It speaks to being unnecessarily verbose, like saying: "At the current time, I don't think so" vs just saying "No".
Context: I learned this word in TS Eliot's Four Quartets, in East Coker. Following an intentionally exaggerated romantic section, he critiques his own passage (and romanticism) as periphrastic and unsatisfactory:
What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.
That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
The houses are all gone under the sea.
The dancers are all gone under the hill.
-----
... Runner-up in this same selection is 'hebetude' (state of being dull or lethargic).
It speaks to being unnecessarily verbose, like saying: "At the current time, I don't think so" vs just saying "No".
Context: I learned this word in TS Eliot's Four Quartets, in East Coker. Following an intentionally exaggerated romantic section, he critiques his own passage (and romanticism) as periphrastic and unsatisfactory:
What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.
That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
The houses are all gone under the sea.
The dancers are all gone under the hill.
-----
... Runner-up in this same selection is 'hebetude' (state of being dull or lethargic).
This post was edited on 6/27/25 at 9:49 pm
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:49 pm to Knight of Old
quote:
Sesquipedalian
You posted what I was going to so I'll go in the opposite direction with...
abecedarian
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:50 pm to RohanGonzales
So you are acknowledging that I am in authority over you
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:51 pm to epbart
I never mentioned there was a prize
but admirable effort
but admirable effort
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:51 pm to OWLFAN86
Rapscallion
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:52 pm to Tyga Woods
i had the worst encillada this evening
my gut is all Zappata
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:53 pm to Knight of Old
good one
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:53 pm to GreenRockTiger
quote:
it’s from Gulliver’s Travels, though, right?
Indubitably.
Posted on 6/27/25 at 9:55 pm to OWLFAN86
No one wants to hear about your pusillanimous peccadilloes.
Posted on 6/27/25 at 10:01 pm to fr33manator
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Posted on 6/27/25 at 10:04 pm to epbart
That's the mostest periphrastic thing I've read all night
This post was edited on 6/27/25 at 10:07 pm
Posted on 6/27/25 at 10:09 pm to OWLFAN86
Pulchritudinous
Posted on 6/27/25 at 10:10 pm to Zappas Stache
quote:
That's the mostest periphrastic thing I've read all night
Posted on 6/27/25 at 10:10 pm to OWLFAN86
If you want to learn some new words just read anything written by Cormac McCarthy.
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