“War of Attrition Situation in which, as on the Western Front in World War I, both sides appear equally balanced, are unable to conduct a war of movement, and are restricted to wearing the enemy down militarily, industrially, and psychologically.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged term of art, united states history
“The works of William Burroughs…have been taken seriously, even solemnly, by some literary types, including Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer. Actually, Burroughs’s work adds up to the world’s pluperfect put-on.
Time
“…the merest trash, not worth a second look.”
New Republic
“…The book is unnecessary,”
Granville Hicks, The New Republic
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, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities, readings/research
“One Hundred Years of Solitude: (Spanish title Cien anos de soledad). A novel (1967; English translation 1970) by the Columbian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1928-2014), generally regarded as the archetypal example of Latin American magical realism. The setting is the small, isolated Columbian village of Macondo, a fictional community that had previously appeared in Garcia Marquez’s La hojarasca (1955; Leafstorm and Other Stories) and in La mala hora (1962; In Evil Hour). The novel follows seven generations of the increasingly inbred Buendia family, the founders of the village, and their story parallels the history of Columbia itself.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
“What gave the Bloomsbury Group its name? The group of writers and thinkers, which included Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, and Lytton Strachey, among others, was named for the place where they held their meetings, 46 Gordon Square, in Bloomsbury, London.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
“Spectrum Palette: The restricted palette first used by the French Impressionists, consisting of the colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet) plus white.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Preposition: A word that relates its object (a noun, pronoun, or -ing verb form) to another word in the sentence. She is the leader of our group. We opened the door by picking the lock. She went out the window.”
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
“acute stress disorder: A transient anxiety disorder following exposure to a traumatic event, with a similar pattern of symptoms to post-traumatic stress disorder plus symptoms of disassociation (such as dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, derealization) but occurring within four weeks of the traumatic event. If the symptoms persist beyond four weeks, then a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder may be considered.
[From the Latin acutus sharpened, from acuere, to sharpen, from acus a needle]”
Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
“At auction for by Auction. ‘The goods were sold at auction.’”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage
“Brutalism: A term coined by the British to characterize the style of Le Corbusier in the early 1950s and others inspired by him. His buildings at Marseilles, France, and Chandigarh, India, make use of Beton Brut. Increasingly occupied with sculptural effects, brutalist architects moved away from the geometric purism of the International Style.”
“Beton Brut: ‘Raw concrete’ is the result of pouring wet cement into a temporary form made of timber or metal. When the cement dries the form’s texture remains imprinted upon the surface. It’s an important element in the work of Le Corbusier.
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
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