“Lithography: A planographic process that depends on the antipathy of grease to water. The design is drawn directly on a bed, traditionally of limestone, with a greasy crayon. The stone is wetted, then coated with an oily ink, which clings to the greasy design and is repelled by the wet areas.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Life is indeed darkness save when there is urge/And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge/And all knowledge is vain save when there is work/And all work is empty save when here is love.”
Kahlil Gibran The Prophet (1923)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
“Rotten Reviews: The Wreckage of Agathon
’”Wreckage’ is appropriate…more hysterical than historical.’
Library Journal
Rotten Reviews: October Light
‘Within this great welter of word, symbols, and gassy speechifying and half-hatched allegory there was once, I suspect, a good lean novel, but I can’t find it….’
Peter Prescott, Newsweek”
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
“tech prep: A four-year program (the last two years of high school plus two years of community college) that leads to an associate degree or a two-year certificate in a specific career field. The carefully integrated and sequenced curriculum includes a common core of mathematics, science, communications, and technologies. Tech prep provides training for the average student who does not want to attend a four-year college but wants to prepare for a career.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“True Grit: A film Western (1969) based on a novel (1968) of the same name by Charles Portis (b. 1933). The film starred John Wayne as an indomitable one-eyed marshal, ‘Rooster’ Cogburn, who is eventually persuaded to help a determined teenage girl avenge herself upon her father’s murderers. According to Portis, he picked up the phrase while researching memoirs about the old West, in which all manner of heroes were praised for their ‘grit’ (meaning their determination and courage):
‘I had never seen it in such profusion as in these books. There was grit, plain grit, plain old grit, clear grit, pure grit, pure dee grit (a euphemism for damned) and true grit. Thus the hard little word was in my head when I began the story.’
He jotted the phrase down on the title page of his script for use within the text when it became appropriate, and then realized it would make a good title itself. Portis was not, as he admitted himself, the first writer to make use of the phrase: as early as 1897 Bram Stoker quoted it in his novel Dracula.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
“Criticize for Condemn or Disparage. Criticism is not necessarily censorious; it may approve.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
“Blather (noun): Long-winded, heedless talk; foolish verbiage. N. blatherskite; v. blather.
‘[James] Bond, Reagan blathers on, is “fearless. Skilled, courageous, and the other thing: he always gets his girl.” The next thing you know, Ron will be telling it to the marines.’ J. Hoberman, Village Voice”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“What was the source of Betrolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (1928)? Brecht follows the general outline of English playwright John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), but focuses more on social evils.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
teleology: Causality in which the effect is explained by the end (Greek telos) to be realized. Teleology thus differs essentially from efficient causality, in which an effect is dependent on prior events. Aristotle’s account of teleology declared that a full explanation of anything must consider it’s the final cause—the purpose for which the thing exists or was produced. Following Aristotle, many philosophers have conceived of biological processes as involving the operation of a guiding end. Modern science has tended to appeal only to efficient causes in its investigations. See also mechanism.
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Yankee, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States, the word is unknown. (See DAMYANK.)”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
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