All Questions
Tagged with wording-choice meaning
17
questions
3
votes
1
answer
157
views
What does "the balance of this paragraph" mean in the annotated American Gods?
In Gaiman's Annotated American Gods, the annotator often refers to the balance of a paragraph.
For example annotation #73 says "The balance of this paragraph does not appear in the first edition&...
- 33
4
votes
1
answer
732
views
What does "to the sack" mean in Hunchback of Notre Dame?
What does "to the sack" mean in this context:
To the sack, to the sack!” rose the cry on all sides.
At that moment, the tapestry of the dressing-room, which we have described above, was ...
- 171
3
votes
0
answers
358
views
Meaning of a "dry palate" and "frozen rain" in Achebe's "Things Fall Apart"
I am currently reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, consider the following passage.
The colonizers just came to the tribe of Mbanta and everyone seemed uninterested...
But there was a young ...
- 131
2
votes
1
answer
98
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Meaning and significance of "cacheremo" in the Decameron?
In Day 3 Story 8 of the Decameron (Italian original), a prisoner in an abbey, who believes himself to be in purgatory, asks how far he is from his own country, and received the following reply:
“And ...
- 74.1k
5
votes
1
answer
160
views
What does it mean to "graze on the fizzy air"?
This is from James Scully's translation of Aias (also known as Ajax), in The Complete Plays of Sophocles, translated by Robert Bagg & James Scully.
Dear boy
may you be ...
- 9,864
2
votes
1
answer
132
views
What does "beak first" mean in "An Ode to America"?
From "An Ode to America" (The Atlantic's Jan/Feb 2022 issue):
“Pretty good nose you got there! You do much fighting with that nose?”
New Orleans, 1989. I’m standing on a balcony south of ...
- 9,864
10
votes
1
answer
26k
views
Origin and significance of E-I-E-I-O in the Old MacDonald song
The well-known children's song "Old MacDonald had a Farm" has lyrics in the following format:
Old MacDonald had a farm
E-I-E-I-O !
And on that farm he had {article} {singular or plural ...
- 30.1k
0
votes
0
answers
101
views
What does "I ween that you are better where you are" in "The Heart of the Raven" mean?
The chorus of the song "The Heart of the Raven" by the German band MONO INC. goes like this:
But here in the raven's heart
Your heart is beating on
I ween that you are better where you are
...
- 26.1k
4
votes
1
answer
471
views
Which does this part refer to, a pencil or the words?
I’d like to ask about the sentence in The Red Circle by Conan Doyle.
The words are written with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a
not unusual pattern.
This is uttered by Holmes when he saw ...
- 503
0
votes
2
answers
137
views
"otherwise" in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
In Chapter Seven of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (published 1816), I saw the following sentence:
I remembered also the nervous fever with which I had been seized just at the time that I dated my ...
- 399
4
votes
1
answer
2k
views
What does "balks account" mean in Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric"?
Walt Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric" is a sort of celebration of the human body. A phrase that recurs a few times is "balks account":
The love of the body of man or ...
- 74.1k
-3
votes
1
answer
121
views
Does the line "writing in the time of covid-19" reference some work of literature? [closed]
Someone sent me this literature joke but I don't get it, can someone help me please?
He wrote:
*writing in the time of covid-19
Apparently the joke has something to do with literature, so if anyone ...
- 5
8
votes
2
answers
3k
views
Why did Emerson choose 'hobgoblin' in his quote 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'?
Ralph Waldo Emerson said:
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
I understand the quote. But Wikipedia doesn't explain the origin of the following signification? It differs from the ...
user175
6
votes
1
answer
154
views
A real meaning of a Bramarbas or a Holofernes?
Before long the madness of intoxication broke out; they attacked one another with fists and knives, and it looked as if they would do murder. Suddenly the Saltmaster’s son, who had stood looking on, ...
- 163
14
votes
1
answer
818
views
What does "kettle at the heel" mean in this Yeats poem, "The Tower"?
What shall I do with this absurdity —
O heart, O troubled heart — this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
...
- 659