Word of the Day. It comes straight from the Latin so that helps, but only if you took a lot of Latin, which I did but actually it didn't help because I am so old that lots of my Latin is stored in locked boxes at the back of my braincloset and when I go to retrieve it, I stop and look at other things,or get lost, or forget what the word was to start with, or trip over loose neurons and give up. The root is easily guessed, but isn't too helpful.
I am playing on your sympathies so you will feel bad for me and not make me pay you a candybar.
LUCUBRATION
Sentence:
Many of Mozart's works were accomplished by lucubration.
Not to be confused with lubrication, which I understand he also did a lot of.
Picture:
Us at two a.m. writing our magni operi (I made that plural up-have no idea what declension anything is anymore). We are lucubrating madly.
Actual meaning:
1. The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation.
2. That which is composed by night; that which is produced by meditation in retirement; hence (loosely) any literary composition.
Their sentence is really interesting!
A point of information for those with time on their hands:
if you were to read 135 books a day, every day, for a year,
you wouldn't finish all the books published annually in the
United States. Now add to this figure, which is upward of
50,000, the 100 or so literary magazines; the scholarly,
political and scientific journals (there are 142 devoted to
sociology alone), as well as the glossy magazines, of which
bigger and shinier versions are now spawning, and you'll
appreciate the amount of lucubration that finds its way
into print.
--Arthur Krystal, "On Writing: Let There Be Less," [1]New York Times, March 26, 1989 |
