right n. Designating the side of the body which is positioned to the east if one is facing north. n. Pertaining to the political right; conservative. left n. Designating the side of the body which is positioned to the west if one is facing north. n. Pertaining to the political left; liberal. “Left” and “right” [...]
codicil n. An addition or supplement that explains, modifies, or revokes a will or part of one. Codicil is known mostly as a legal term (for which see the official definition), but in practice is has come to refer figuratively to any addition or addendum, often with a quasi-scholarly connotation. Its use in English dates [...]
color n. The spectral composition of visible light. n. A particular set of visible spectral compositions, perceived or named as a class[.] The modern English Color is now the same as the Latin from which it came, though the intervening steps are not: the Latin led to the Old French color, which led to the [...]
ketchup A tomato-vinegar based sauce. Ketchup seems as American as apple pie (which itself is English, not American), but just like the pizza we know and love originated in Greece, so the tomato ketchup we use today has a history very different from Heinz 57. The origins of the word come from a Chinese dialect: [...]
¶ Grendel
I read Beowulf in high school, as is the case for a great number of young adults, and was unlikely at that time to be able to appreciate it. The book is, after all, critically easy to misunderstand, misinterpret, underappreciate, or otherwise abuse. J.R.R. Tolkien famously wrote that Beowulf‘s importance as a poetic work far [...]
I’ve always been interested in the vagaries of translation—both the accomplishment of it and all the problems which plague it. Most recently, I read Robert Alter’s new translation of Psalms; it’s not a surprise that, not even counting the significant introduction on methodology, almost half of the book’s text is explanatory footnotes. The truth is, [...]
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