Archive
Category: Resources
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pleonasm
noun The use of more words than necessary to describe something. Often tautological. “The two of them are both the same” is a pleonasm, as is “killed dead”. Read more →
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grammatolatry
noun The worship of words or letters. An avid reader, John was as prone to grammatolatry as anyone. Read more →
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parisology
noun the deliberate use of equivocal or ambiguous terms Lawyers are masters of the art of parisology. Read more →
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catachresis
noun strained or paradoxical use of words either in error (as `blatant’ to mean ‘flagrant’) or deliberately (as in a mixed metaphor: ‘blind mouths’) Alexander Pope’s Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry: “Masters of this [Catachresis] will say, Mow the beard, Shave the grass, Pin the plank, Nail my sleeve. From whence… Read more →
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endonym
EHN-doh-nim noun A name used by a community to refer to itself or its language, as distinct from a name given to them by outsiders. Deutschen is an endonym of the people known in English as German and Mapuche is an endonym of the people known to outsiders as Araucanios. Antonym: exonym. Read more →
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exonym
EK-soh-nim noun 1. A name used by foreigners for a place, as Florence for Firenze. 2. A name used by foreigners to refer to a people or social group that the group itself does not use, as Germans for Deutsche. Synonym: xenonym. Antonym: endonym. Vienna is an exonym of Wien. Read more →
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autocephaly
/ˈɔtəˌsɛfəli/ noun 1. Having its own head; independent of episcopal or patriarchal jurisdiction, as certain Eastern European churches. 2. Subordinate to no superior authority; self-governing. From the Greek kephalos meaning ‘head’ (ie, self-headed). Cf autonomous, from nomos, menaing ‘law’ (ie, self-legislated). The Orthodox Church in America was granted autocephaly by the Patriarch of Moscow in… Read more →
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Velazquez (Rizzoli Art Classics)
The Rizzoli Art Classics series brings you Piero della Francesca, Titian, Caravaggio, and Velázquez, all in beautifully illustrated monographs, offering high-quality reproductions in compact, accessible volumes. These books feature a literary introduction by a renowned art historian, a thoroughly researched essay, and captions describing the artist’s most famous canvases. A useful appendix section includes an… Read more →
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Hieronymus Bosch
Four hundred little people frolic au naturel with overgrown songbirds and raspberries; a pudgy blue demon serenades a fashionable young couple with a tune piped through his own elongated nose; a knife-wielding set of disembodied ears stalks the damned through hell. The phantasmagoric imagery of Hieronymus Bosch (d. 1516) has been the source of widespread… Read more →
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Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919, the Painter of Happiness (Taschen Jumbo Series)
La vie en rose. The world’s happiest paintings. Auguste Renoir’s timelessly charming paintings are the embodiment of happiness, love, and beauty. TASCHEN’s Renoir, the most complete retrospective book of this painter’s work, examines in detail the history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began his career painting landscapes in the impressionist style, Renoir (1841-1919)… Read more →