Listen, You Might Learn Something
I am a sucker for smart songs. I'll forgive a bad melody or a cheesy rhyme if the song's lyrics make up for it. If my inclination for bookish rockers is any indication, then April's theory that people surround themselves with those they think are not as smart as they are is dead wrong. Or maybe that only applies to friends because I definitely hold a certain place in my heart for brainy songwriters. Maybe it is my inner geek but I adore Ani DiFranco's witty lines and swoon over Stephen Malkmus. I also named this blog after a They Might Be Giants song.
So I am pleased as punch to now have the Decemberists albums Picaresque and Castaways and Cutouts (thanks, Mike!) Every word in them is an absolute gem.
Were I to teach high-school English, I could devise an entire vocabulary test based on lyrics taken from Decemberists songs. Here are the words that would be my first quiz:
Take out a number two pencil
- magistrate
- priory
- roustabout
- balustrade
- courtesan
- parapets
- callow
- rhapsodic
- derision
- bowery
- stevedore
- tamarack
- truncated
- languor
- iniquity
5 comments:
I spend too much time just corrected my husband's grammar to put up with your spelling test, Porter. And besides, I haven't used a #2 pencil since, well, people were TALKING to me about #2 pencils. I'd rather play it lazy and make this request of YOU. Throw the definitions up on your blog so I can learn something without making my head hurt.
How apropos of me to have made a typing mistake in my sentence about regulating *another* person's grammar. Dammit.
You know what I MEANT.
It's called a dictionary. It's not expensive. And besides, won't you feel better about yourself if you look up the answers yourself?
BOOOOOO! Even if I *did* learn the definitions, you'd 1. Never hear me use any of them in a sentence, and 2. Always be kicking my ass in other random trivia games, so NO THANK YOU. I'll continue to speak in small monosyllable words.
My next vocab quiz is taken from Joanna Newsom's album Milk Eyed Mender.
1. cowrie
2. inflammatory
3. unflagging
4. fervor
5. cockle
(I've only listened to the album once so I only have 5 words!)
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