Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Wondrous Words Wednesday!

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermudaonion's Weblog where we share words that we’ve encountered in our reading. Feel free to join in the fun (please do!) Be sure to leave a link to your post over at Bermudaonion's Weblog.

The following word comes from The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen


" That was how it had been ever since the diagnosis: a pretense of animosity had grown between them, a kind of ongoing, low-level dyspepsia."


1. Dyspepsia
: deranged or impaired digestion; indigestion




" At times her appearance provided a not unpleasant diversion or even comic relief, but right now, coupled with her desire to express bathetic condolences, it was the last thing John wanted to deal with.


2. Bathos
: insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness
: triteness or triviality in style


" He leaned in ostentatiously to eye the meniscus of John's glass, then rose from the bar stool. "


3. Meniscus
: the curved surface at the top of a column of liquid





These next few words are from Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh


" Although not far, the distance was too great for Hukam Singh to cover on foot, for he had been wounded in the leg while serving as a sepoy in a British regiment. "


4. Sepoy
: (formerly, in India) a native soldier, usually an infantryman, in the service of Europeans, especially of the British.




" At the factory's ghat on the Ganga, a one-masted pateli barge could be seen, flying the pennant of the English East India Company. "


5. Ghat
: a wide set of steps descending to a river, especially a river used for bathing.




" Once his meal had been wrapped and packed, she broke off to pay a quick visit to her shrine room: later, after she's bathed and changed, Deeti would do a proper puja with flowers and offerings; now, being clothed still in her night-time sari, she merely stopped at the door, to join he hands in a brief genuflection. "


6. Puja (Hinduism)
:the worship of a particular god.

9 comments:

  1. Yay! I knew a lot of these, so that's awesome! I loved the words you chose today. Very good and varied selection.

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  2. Great words and selection.

    http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2011/09/wondrous-words-wednesday_21.html

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  3. Nice selection of words! I like your blog it is clean and clear and bright! Lots of good books on it too!

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  4. 'deranged digestion' sounds funny and . . . erm . . . not a lot of fun.

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  5. Great words! I'll have to refer to this post when I read that book.

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  6. I like your words from Sea of Poppies. I want to read that book and now I really want to read it. A few words from a book are a good teaser.

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  7. Hey, a couple of those were on my list, too! I've been meaning to look up "sepoy" and "ghat" for ages. I also learned that "godowns" are warehouses, especially near a dock!

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  8. Some of these were known to me, others not, including ghat, bathos and puja.
    Great selection this week :)

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