Ersatz TLS discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
What are we reading? 2 June 2025
Interesting about the springs in Vermont, in the UK we still get a slower spring "warm up", than an autumn "cool down" but this Spring has been very different, any cold weather was gone by late March, though the nights stayed chillyforecast for tommorow is 17c with rain here, thats Flaming June in England for you!!!
Mod
Speaking for myself, I have rather enjoyed the ones of AF that I have read, and currently I’m some way into one set in the Paris of about 1700, La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque, which translates roughly as “The Roast-meat Shop at the sign of the Web-Footed Queen” (pédauque being derived from the term in langue d’oc for having webbed feet like a goose). A young man, the son of the rôtisseur, recounts how he left his job as spit-turner and got his education in life and letters, e.g. listening to a learned abbé, a disreputable capuchin monk and a mysterious natural philosopher as they debate, over dishes of succulent goose pâté, and with much reference to alchemical authorities, whether Salamanders are creatures of the Adversary and whether they can truly survive in a fire. It’s all done in a comical mock-serious tone and so far it’s very enjoyable.
Normally I never look at an introduction until afterwards. This time I checked the Preface to see if the period really was 1700 and not, in view of the language and the Rabelaisian/Faustian overtones, the late 1500s. From the little I read it seems the editor, very solemn, thinks it is not a jest at all.
RussellinVT wrote: "In To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson devotes a chapter to showing that Anatole France was terminally unserious, the final representative of a disintegrating bourgeois tradition, addicted to hist..."are you reading that in french Russ?
Mod
Yes. It's not that difficult. What I do need the notes for is the slew of names that AF throws out - medieval and renaissance writers I'd never heard of.
RussellinVT wrote: "AB76 wrote: "are you reading that in french Russ?"Yes. It's not that difficult. What I do need the notes for is the slew of names that AF throws out - medieval and renaissance writers I'd never h..."
sounds like a very interesting read!
2025 has been a strange one for me,in terms of books, the richest and most enjoyable five months i can remember, like a non-stop procession of great reading. The less positive was tooth issues and the endless sunshine through the english spring, i loathe a lack of rain The Lawless Roads by Graham Greene (1939), is endless entertainment of a kind of slightly dry english variety, i can picture so many people i know like Greene soldiering on, in apalling conditions. The state of accommodation is the great travel writing pillar, i am always amused to find taps that dont work in these books, the food that is untouchable, the state of repair of rooms, stairs and windows.
Greene does not dissapoint as he finds Mexican standards exceedingly lax: a filthy, hot cabin on a barge where he sweats naked under the mossie nets, a room in Tabasco where a horde of insects circulates. His refrain of "heat and flies" is familiar from the congo journal he wrote.
From the Texan border down to Tabasco(i'm about half way through), i'm learning a lot about Mexico, my least familar large latin american country. The series of wars and warlords are still underway, though President Cardenas(moderate,socialist and not corrupt) is beginning to do some good works. He finds rather naive americans in every stage of the book and an amusing section in Tabasco centres around the revelation that there are many Grahams and Greenes in that state, descended from post civil war Yankee settlers.
I have laughed out loud many times and am glad i am reading this before the novel (The Power and the Glory). Greene displays his skill as a writer where he manages to bridge the english and european styles of his time, with circular motifs and ideas.
His best work manages to keep you thinking every few pages, drawing you back to the big questions but in a quite english way, no other english writer of the 1930-1990 period quite matches this skill, which places him kind of mid english channel, so to speak.....theories and ideas, that the englishman disdains, but not Greene
Mod
A way of looking at him that I hadn't thought of - a good touchstone for the next time I read him.
Mod
Now Holmes is moving on to the extraordinary William Herschel, who was making a living as a musician in Bath but developed a self-taught passion for astronomy and built with his own hands the most advanced and powerful telescopes then known. And his equally extraordinary young sister Caroline, who had a passion for comments. Herschel’s opinions could be heterodox. One early paper, based on his close observations of our nearest neighbour, argued that the Moon was the planet and Earth the satellite.
I'm back to the history genre with
20% in (can't you tell it is on an e-reader?)
Henry IV has just married to Joan of Navarre, a love match apparently. The Beauforts are now legitimate and loyal to Henry.
However, the Welsh are revolting (sorry Scarlet et al 😆). So far a very enjoyable read and not dry as are some history books.
Of course we all know how the story ends, but that is usually the case with history books!
Mod
..."I always find the Beaufort story impossibly complicated (are they in? are they out?), so a book specifically on them might help. Nathen Amin is a new name to me.
Mod
I have very much enjoyed 'Innocence' by Penelope Fitzgerald, Pub. 1986 (Collins). I read her ,early, 'Offshore' many years ago, which had something of a family romp about it. Enjoyable, but not to my mind a Booker winner. 'Innocence' is the story of an aristocratic Italian family, fallen on harder times, and their various eccentricities whilst dealing, rather ineffectively, with a possible romance between the single young daughter and a not so local doctor. I was impressed by how much Penelope is the master of conveying a great deal of information, and character in such short but finally crafted sentences.One thing I do still ponder on with this is how much this relies on the phenomena of the common 'trope'. This is often seen as a type of literary cheat, by referring to making something common and predictable, but I also have to say that it is only when it is broadly recognised across a slice of society that in a way it is able to demonstrate it's own truth, and so becomes more than a trope, perhaps?The one main English character, and school friend of Chiara, the young love interest, could also be referred to as a classic 'English' upper class trope of the 1950's. Still it is a good read to me.
I am hopefully passing it on to an Italian friend of the sprogs, in the hope we could perhaps discuss the difference, if any, between classic English and Italian tropes. I think this kind of question gets more complicated these days, when using tropes from other cultures, other than one's own, are seen by some as exploitative and or demeaning. If you enjoy Stella Gibbons, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth von Arnim, you will probably enjoy this. I have only six days left to get around to reading my library copy of 'Stone Yard Devotional', by Charlotte Wood.
RussellinVT wrote: "A very nice copy the Ernst Junger war journals arrived yesterday from Thrift Books in Texas, so I shall be resuming that highly impressive slow read."the break will have made you anticipate it more i'm sure....! is it the university of columbia version?
Mod
Yes indeed. I can't imagine anyone doing it better.
...
Meanwhile, on page 248 of Len Deighton's Bomber, just over half way through, the Lancasters have finally taken off. Good scene-setting, good characterizations, now for the action. It's clearly going to be appalling.
RussellinVT wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I'm back to the history genre with ..."I always find the Beaufort story impossibly complic..."
They won!! Last man standing. At one time Henry Tudor was about 39th in line to the throne, but he had a pushy very determined mother, a very loyal uncle, and a duplicitous step father. Put that together with a king who was too busy fighting for territory that he forgot to have any kids (Henry VI) until just before he died, and then from a family with mental health issues. All of which created the perfect storm which was the Wars of the Roses, originally called the Wars of the Cousins.
It is the first book I have read by Nathan Amin. It is written in a very readable style. But it does help to have a family tree with a book mark in the page if reading a book rather than an ereader.
Mod
Interesting thought, Tam, that her style depends on some sleight of hand – not that this much of a problem for me, as her style is so winning. I agree on Offshore, which left me wondering what the fuss was about. Contrast The Blue Flower, which I thought close to perfection. I haven’t read Innocence, so that will be a good opportunity to look out for tropes. Anything that can be mentioned alongside Elizabeth von Arnim is a hot recommendation.
New reading:Midnight Mass and Other Stories(1981) by Paul Bowles, one of the last short story collections by the american writer, set in Morrocco mostly and as usual interesting and sometimes unusual.
Roughing It In the Bush by Susanna Moodie(1852). an account of the authors life in rural Ontario in the 1830s, when what was then called "Upper Canada" was just being settled, within 15 years the population expanded hugely. The area she lived in was very sparsely populated at first and needed hard work to make it prosper.
I'm toying with Ghosts by John Banville but it isnt quite working as yet, the island location, sea and setting all work but its probably gonna be dumped.
RussellinVT wrote: "Tam wrote: "I have very much enjoyed 'Innocence' by Penelope Fitzgerald, Pub. 1986 (Collins) ..."Interesting thought, Tam, that her style depends on some sleight of hand – not that this much of a..."
I have been meaning to read The Blue Flower, (which she wrote when she was 79!). She did do a lot of 'creative' travelling in her later life (her lapsed lawyer husband who was prosecuted for fraud! he was also an alcoholic it seems)... Anyway he later became a travel agent, so I guess that might explain the books set in many different places. Good on her for being so enterprising.
The sprogs friend had already read 'Innocence', a long time ago. He says that a lot of the over-arching attempted manipulations of family members, that were so common in Italian families, have died out somewhat in modern Italy, but he recognised the trope!... And that at least one side of his family are still very prone to falling out with family members and not speaking to them for long periods. And there is still a tendency for Northern Italians to look down on Southern Italians. It seems I'm very curious as to how and why people see things differently... Anyway happy trope hunting...
I have just picked up Benjamin Myers 'Cuddy' from the library. I'm not sure why but I have picked up a certain fondness for St Cuthbert and St Herbert, who were bosum buddies of the cloth it seems, and would like to know more about their lives. I seem to be collecting metal sculptures of birds for the garden and so far have 'Albert', a fish eagle, Herbert, an egret, and I'm looking for a suitable Cuthbert. I'm one for the 'Berts' it seems.
Greene in Mexico (The Lawless Roads) is just wonderful, full of wit in a dry english way, as our man tries to travel the length of Mexico in spring 1938If there is an obstacle, Greene finds it, in the endless waiting at various godforsaken locations, the terrible food and accommodation, the promises that turn out to be nothing but words and the strange procession of insects in every bedroom. Greene devotes some wonderful passages to his "bug killing", the sounds of rats and goats and the inevitable filth and heat in every place he visits
But behind the dry wit is a keen observational mind, his mission was to report on the anti-catholic policies in southern Mexico, which he admits were less of an issue in hindsight but not insignificant. He marvels at how a proclamation from President Cardenas makes it from the dirty slow barge on the Gulf, into the sweaty Tabascan lowlands and then to the feverish, sweaty Chiapas highlands, a political message on a slow arduous journey.
His reading matter is Trollope, Cobbett and then some norwegian classics he finds when staying with a Norwegian-Mexican family.
Just finished Greene's The Lawless Roads and i recommend it one and allMy next non-fiction is The Longest War about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, almost exactly 43 years ago. Argentinian writer Jacobo Timmerman was critical of the war and it shook his belief in the Zionist project, i look foward to reading it
AB76 wrote: "Just finished Greene's The Lawless Roads and i recommend it one and allMy next non-fiction is The Longest War about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, almost exactly 43 years ago. Argenti..."
I would be very interested in your thoughts on 'The Longest War'. I have some personal experience in the mix, of having lived in Israel for over a year or so, back in the mid 70's. Rather reluctantly though, as I do know how polarised opinion is, on recent Israel government policy is. But I have engaged, historically, on the debate, in my most recent blog, but I'm thinking that direct experience is still considered contentious somehow. Anyway, for those interested in a very singular account of the matter. I really don't mind being challenged about it at all. But I don't live in Israel, anymore!... Still it is an interesting country, to me. https://jediperson.wordpress.com/2025...
Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Just finished Greene's The Lawless Roads and i recommend it one and allMy next non-fiction is The Longest War about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, almost exactly 43 years a..."
just started it Tam and its brilliant, after subscribing to Haaretz weekend for 3 years in the 2010s, i have a huge admiration for the way the Israelis write and think and Timmerman, via Argentina, is a similar high standard.
his emphasis on a war of "aggression" is interesting too, certainly the IDF had not been entirely passive from 1948 to 1981 but this was probably the first major scale invasion of another soverign territory that Israel ever launched.
Mod
Footnote: This was the first ever work of fiction written on a word-processor, in 1969. LD describes in an endpiece how this came about. His secretary retyped the early chapters 20+ times. Then he was able to do it 20+ times himself. Today it’s hard to imagine not being able to amend with ease. When I started work in an office in 1971, word-processing was just starting. It was done by a specialist group, and was for long documents only. Lowly people like me barely ever got access. But that taught you to get it right, as best you could, first time.
Mod
A heads up for anyone who like the Shardlake series by C J Sansom, a tv series is starting tonight om ITV at 9pm.
RussellinVT wrote: "I’ve finished Bomber by Len Deighton. This brick of a book was a good read, the first half all scene-setting, the second half the massive raid, up in the air with the Lancaster crews trying to loca..."i must read Bomber
i never worked without computers, so never experienced the paper office emphasis on accuracy. i started work in 2000, closed circuit PCs, no internet access but of course correction was easy
although at uni i used a word processor, with a screen that showed about two sentences, thinking back, i'm amazed i wrote so many essays on it!
the hole punching reminds me of a neighbour who worked for IBM in the early 70s where the card punching was still a major part of the process
Mod
RussellinVT wrote: "Interesting obits of Frederick Forsyth, who has died at 86. I read The Day of the Jackal only recently and was quite taken with it as a thriller, very involving. I particularly liked it for the aut..."I enjoyed The Odessa File and the Fourth Protocol.
RussellinVT wrote: "Interesting obits of Frederick Forsyth, who has died at 86. I read The Day of the Jackal only recently and was quite taken with it as a thriller, very involving. I particularly liked it for the aut..."i re-read it 2-3 years ago and was very impressed by Day of the Jackal
We have lost Forsyth and Ngugi, the great Kenyan writer in June so far
Mod
But, to give an idea of the entertaining side, one central scene is a comical debate over the dinner table. A devil-may-care military gentleman is due to fight a duel with Jacques in the morning over the attentions of the coquettish Cathérine but in the meantime has invited Jacques and his mentor, the urbane and learned abbé, to sit down to a fine dinner with himself and Cathérine, who for her part listens to it all unconcernedly. The military man shocks the abbé by professing to be an atheist, while the pious abbé, who is also an admirer of the female form, argues for the absolute unimportance of virtue in attractive young women - Virtue, like a crow, inhabits only ruins, it lives in the hollows and wrinkles of the flesh, look at this delightful young lady, where in her person, I ask you, could there be any room for virtue, she is full of sap, and meaty, and well-rounded, no one could sensibly expect her to be virtuous. And so on for several pages.
RussellinVT wrote: "I finished La Rôtisserie de la reine Pedauque, and it continued entertaining, or at least stimulating, to the end - except for some passages where Anatole France went on too long with the fabulatio..."sounds like a very unusual read, i have AF's novel about the french revolution on my pile somewhere...
Re "Bomber", what year in the war does it cover Russ? I know it encompasses one night raid, was it around the time of Hamburg or earlier?I have Hans Nossacks short book on his experiences as a civilian in Hamburg on my list to read this summer
Edmund Wilson, is for me, a rare example of an american anglo-heritage thinker and intellectual who was interested in many different facets of life and keen to express these interests.I have read a collection of his 1920s and 30s writings(superb), a less "together" and more scrappy edition of this 1950s writing and have started his study of Canadian literature, O Canada written in 1965
Both Canada and Australia fascinate me, with their cultural link to the UK, their vast size and their development since the 1850s. I have visited the latter more than the former and with my reading, its a 50/50 balance but find less Canadian literature that i want to read after a decade of some great novels.
Wilson looks at the French-English divide, still very strong in 1965, although other groups are starting to emerge in mid 1960s Canada. He also looks within the British emigrants and finds the many divisions there (Presbyterian Scots, Methodist English, Catholic Scots and Irish, plus the Ulster Presbyterians) and sees that within the British ethnic world, there is significant division.
He uses a comment someone made to him, about canadians not having "melted" as a factor in this. The older larger USA he proposes had managed to eliminate these divisions too, while in Canada they had still not faded. Its a theory i debate somewhat as all the groups in Anglo_Canada he mentions had strong identities in the USA, in the mid 60s, although i guess they were smaller minorities in a much largher population
He rightly sees Hugh Mclennan as one of the best canadian writers at the time (i recommend Barometer Rising to everyone, i loved it). I'm enjoying the Wilsonian style and reading about Canadian writing. Though i dont think i will be reading any Canadian fiction in 2025
Mod
It's set in 1943, and the events take place on 31st June, so just before Hamburg. While there’s plenty of good period and geographic detail, the characters and the airbase and the town that is flattened are all, like the date, fictional.
Mod
I think the chief pleasure of reading Edmund Wilson is the easy style combined with a formidable knowledge of the literary sources. You feel yourself in the hands of a master. Not that I've read very much beyond To the Finland Station. It sounds as though you've been working through those two fat volumes by Library of America assembling his essays and reviews, and you've prompted me to look out for them second-hand. They're distinctly expensive new.
He uses a comment someone made to him, about canadians not having "melted" as a factor in this.
Interesting and perceptive comment for the 1950s. I wonder how true it still is. My not very informed impression is that the differences between those older social groups have largely gone, in parallel with the decline in religious observance. Even the Québecois seem to be less strident nowadays.
Mod
sounds like a very unusual read, i have AF's novel about the french revolution on my pile somewhere...
It certainly is unusual. I’ve now read the longish introduction, which was correct in underscoring how memorable is the creation of the abbé Coignard, so generous with his classic learning and so unabashed in his liking for wine and women and occasional thieving, but was no help at all in explaining what Anatole France was about with the pages of stuff on Rosicrucian occultism, except to say (at length) that it was a preoccupation of the late 19th century and to suggest that an interest in the subject of satanism was a facet of AF’s own personality. The editor does not even consider why AF, a Dreyfusard second only to Zola, would give fresh currency to the ancient slanders against the Jewish race. With all that, it’s a tale that can properly be placed in the tradition of Manon Lescaut and Gil Blas. However, I’m not sure there’s any recent translation.
RussellinVT wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Edmund Wilson, is for me, a rare example of an american anglo-heritage thinker and intellectual who was interested in many different facets of life and keen to express these interests...."my essay collections are found were secondhand,so they were in different states of dis-repair and i imagine they are the ones that more recently have been put together as LOA edition
As for Canada, yes i think most of the west has now become a largely much more integrated and secular society than in the 1960s, especially as 20% of most western states are now non-native
Mod
Meanwhile, in the police headquarters on the town square, the commissario and the investigating magistrate are conferring, because they are under pressure from Rome to solve the theft of a quarter million lira in cash from a Swiss financier camping with his family in the dunes. The estate of the local Don is suspiciously close, but he is shielding his people. Where did one of his soldiers get the money to buy a Lambretta?
This well-written mix of history, crime, money and sex was made into a movie (“Where the Hot Wind Blows”) by Jules Dassin, with Gina Lollobrigida, Melina Mercouri, Yves Montand, Marcello Mastroianni, Pierre Brasseur. What a cast. I’m fifty pages in and already I’m thinking I shall have to track it down.
La loi is not what you might think. It’s a game of cards or dice with sinister consequences.
RussellinVT wrote: "La Loi by Roger Vailland, winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1957, is set in a small town on the malarial coast of southern Italy, where people still recall Frederick II of Swabia and his son Manfred w..."interesting, a french novel with an italian setting, i guess i'm reading the same with Yourcenar setting her novel in Rome
About a decade i subscribed to the Haaretz weekend edition, it was delivered in print, in english, to my doorstep for over 2 years, until they said it was now an app and online and i lost interest fast. Its depth, range and engagement with all things Israeli and worldwide was remarkable, its columns and writers were a revelation. I mention this as i am half way through The Longest War by Jacobo Timmerman about the 1982 Lebanon War. It reminds me of what i call the Haaretz "high style" where the writing is something i rarely find in the best of the western media. It is almost like an elegy for a moment in time, as Israel reckons with another war. Timmerman had been jailed in Argentina under the military dictatorship and came to Israel in the late 1970s. He describes his own conflicted thoughts on where Israel was going, he describes soldiers on leave protesting the war and laments the way that Prime Minister Begin references the Shoah at every press conference, as almost a kind of justification for his actions
there is a sadness when one looks at events of 43 years remove and realise so little has changed. Timmerman is a straight talking writer, previously a quite enthusiastic supporter of Israel but one can feel his weariness and his wariness at what might result from the invasion of Lebanon in that hot summer.
(i edited this as on here i can comment about Israel, unlike with the Guardian and the situation right now is a horror show)
Mod
it looks as though the G have let you comment on Israeli issues this times, perhaps because you're explicit about not commenting on the situation today. I never read Haaretz myself. I did read the Jerusalem Post when I was there, back in the early 1970s, and remember thinking the quality was pretty high.
Mod
There are many happy moments – swimming in rivers whenever they could, naked if possible, looking at great art (The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca is a touchstone of perfection), times with close literary friends such as Elizabeth Bowen and Lord David Cecil, contentment in their large, crumbling house outside Steeple Aston, no television, no radio, eventually a gramophone, the garden run wild, he working in a vast Victorian bed, she writing in an attic room, avoiding the drips.
The first qualm is when he notices her, uncharacteristically, looking out of a window with vacant eyes. Disquiet sets in when she is invited to participate in a Q&A discussion at a university in Israel, the kind of forum in which she excelled. This time the words didn’t come, to the embarrassment of other speakers and the audience. She is wholly unaware. Afterwards Amos Oz comes up and introduces himself. It seems he recognized immediately what the problem was, and could not have been kinder.
Now her memory has entirely gone and she is dependent on him for everything. If he says he needs a bit of time to get on with some work she will quietly leave, but in two minutes she forgets and is back, because she cannot be on her own. He believes her illness has made them, if anything, closer than ever, despite the awful trials that it brings.
There’s a sequel, Iris and Her Friends (2000), which I look forward to.
Footnote: They particularly admired a 1925 essay on the Piero painting by Aldous Huxley, who called it the greatest picture in the world. It’s a fresco in the council room of a small Tuscan commune. We can see it today because in WWII a South African artillery officer defied orders to shell the village. He hadn’t ever seen the painting but had read the essay.
RussellinVT wrote: "AB76 wrote: "About a decade i subscribed to the Haaretz weekend edition ..."it looks as though the G have let you comment on Israeli issues this times, perhaps because you're explicit about not c..."
it suprised me, they are so inconsistent in what they censor
You shouldnt judge a book by a cover, is very true but i am seduced by a nice cover like anyone i think and the whole world of cover art is an interesting element in publishingOne remembers the classic Penguin lines that were part of school and youth, the french editions like Gallimard and Pliaide, or the more recent LOA editions
I guess publishers are wise to the effect that a striking cover photo, painting or design can have on the browser in booskhops...
This might provide some insight into the Guardians line on moderating comments on Israeli government policy... https://novaramedia.com/2024/03/12/ho...?
I have given up on reading Benjamine Myers book 'Cuddy' I thought it would be about the life of St Cuthbert, and his friend St Herbert, but it is the story of the many years after his body was dug up, due to threats to Lindisfarne Abbey, by Viking raiders. And hence the long period where his body and his supporters travel around looking for a new home for the remains, which they do find when they finally settle in Durham. I didn't like the style much either, a hodge-podge of prose, poetry and vernacular commentary, from the travelling 'pilgimage-to-be' party. I found it mildly annoying rather than anything else. Total managed 36 pages!... Instead I am moving on to 'The Ministry of Time' by Kaliane Bradley
Tam wrote: "This might provide some insight into the Guardians line on moderating comments on Israeli government policy... https://novaramedia.com/2024/03/12/ho......"
after reading this i'm suprised the army of woke mods didnt get the memo. its been a year since that article and its still very hard to comment in an adult manner on anything the Guardian is no-platforming, the BBC website is far more lenient and but also almost like a sewer but the G is sometimes like a closed silo of the woke variety.
i just support debate and opinion on things and dislike the left wing idea of censorship. i'm left wing and oddly getting more so as i get older, i deeply resent reminders of the Soviet Union when trying to comment in an intelligent manner. I never try and cause offence or inflame things, unlike a huge amount of posts i see the mods let through every day on the Guardian. Its like they have a very sloppy policy and if you are unlucky you fall foul.
Comment is not free, its monitored by people who shouldnt be moderating
Mod
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Desert Encounter (other topics)The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown (other topics)
The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown (other topics)
The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown (other topics)
Just to continue on the weather theme, we too are experiencing shorter springs. In no time at all, ten days or so, you seem to move from glacial winter to summer heat. The fall is also getting warmer and moving later. Fifty years ago the height of the fall colour was the last weekend of September. Now it is more like the third weekend of October. It’s still glorious when it arrives. Native Vermonters like to say Vermont has three seasons – July, August, and winter. The old joke doesn’t apply any more.
I keep hearing new words that I can’t ever imagine myself using. Two that came up in the last couple of weeks are aprioristically (sic, used to mean approaching an issue a priori) and the verb to exponentiate (an expression in mathematics used by the speaker to mean get a lot larger). I’m happy to leave them to a younger generation. No doubt they will one day seem normal.