by beatriceotto | Sep 19, 2017 | triologisms |
One of the landscape changes of recent years is the steady return of wild-looking grass where previously there were endless, weedless swards of emerald green lawn. The more varied it is, the more I wonder how many insects and small creatures live there relatively...
by beatriceotto | Sep 19, 2017 | triologisms |
I have seen beaten-bronze and copper-coloured water, but never silver-plated. ‘The cool, placid, silver-plated water at even coolly awaits the frost.’ 16 Oct 1859 Source: Henry David Thoreau, The Journal 1837-1861, Damion Searls (ed.), preface by John R....
by beatriceotto | Sep 19, 2017 | triologisms |
This refers to Thoreau’s outrage at the callous reaction of his neighbours to the death of John Brown on the grounds that he ‘threw his life away! – what way would they have thrown their lives, pray?’ ‘It galls me to listen to the remarks...
by beatriceotto | Sep 19, 2017 | triologisms |
A great way to convey a chill in the air cold enough to affect the extremities. Also like the idea of improving an evening by pulling up turnips. ‘Another finger-cold evening, which I improve in pulling up turnips.’ 21 Nov 1860 Source: Henry David...
by beatriceotto | Sep 19, 2017 | triologisms |
I found myself wondering just what shade of green is glaucous, and learning that it is either ‘a dull greyish-green or blue’, or a ‘pale greyish or bluish’ and also refers to being covered in a powdery bloom as on grapes. A fine alliterative...
by beatriceotto | Sep 19, 2017 | triologisms |
Firstly, I like the idea of a ‘snow’ bird being the colour of slate. And being obsessed with colours and the names we give them, I notice how many hues and shades can only be described in reference to something of that colour. Elsewhere Thoreau describes...
by beatriceotto | Aug 29, 2017 | triologisms |
Such jaw-gripping tenacity is used to describe the force that the ending ‘-cious’ adds to words, as in the word ‘tenacious’. Thoreau observes and analyses language as incisively as he observes and analyses nature. ‘… the...
by beatriceotto | Aug 29, 2017 | triologisms |
Thoreau isn’t a big fan of chaplains and other purveyors of religion and here he takes a swipe at three visiting ‘ultra-reformers’, one of whom he describes as ‘a sort of travelling pattern-working chaplain’, which I take to mean someone...
by beatriceotto | Aug 29, 2017 | triologisms |
Having always associated ‘sawyer’ with Tom of the same name, it never occurred to me that, like many surnames, it is also a livelihood, in this case, that of sawing wood for a living. Thoreau uses it to describe the sawing sound of the ovenbird, an...
