Sunday, November 1, 2009

The New Yorker: Volume LXXXV, NO. 34, October 26, 2009


atomizev.tr. reduce to atoms or fine particles (break apart; fragment; separate; disperse; scatter).

“This may be a fine time for hip-hop to atomize.”

ejectives n. voiceless consonants that are produced with simultaneous closure of the glottis.

“On cue, the actors began to make strange trilling sounds, ejectives and glottal stops and rolled ‘r’s: Na’vi.”

extremophilesn. “organisms that thrive in environments toxic to most life forms.”

gnomicadj. of, consisting of, or using aphorisms; sententious.

“Scruggly samples from soul records and rapid, gnomic bundles of rhymes about drug-selling and agitated encounters.”

hewingv. conform, adhere.

“The hole was steep and accurate, hewing to the spray-painted plan still visible in two corners where the lines of paint, meeting, had pooled and blurred.”

intransigencen. the quality or state of being intransigent. <--not helpful. (intransigent • adj. uncompromising; stubborn)

“She won’t leave, and the official finds himself increasingly respectful of her intransigence—and so does Kazan.”

irremediablyadv. that cannot be remedied.

“What he means isn’t just that that real-life case was a bad one but that it drew irremediably bad publicity.”

klaxonn. a type of loud horn formerly used on motor vehicles.

“He signs his missives ‘Jim out,’ and, when he’s working, a deep mechanical roar, like a Navy klaxon, summons him to the stage.”

metonymyn. a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated.

“Hollywood metonymy for female characters is ‘handbags,’ also known as ‘girlfriend parts’—in other words, incidental sidekicks.”

noisomeadj. 1 harmful; noxious 2 evil smelling.

“What is more, the savagery that has earned the film its noisome reputation begins only after she has announced, ‘I’m cured, I’m fine.’”

Pilobolusn. a genus of fungi that commonly grows on herbivore dung.

“Zoe Saldana, who plays Neytiri stood among a group of actors wearing black unitards covered with reflective white dots : a retro vision of the computer age, Pilobolus style.”

preemptionn. acquisition by one person or party before the opportunity is offered to others.

“It made an effective preemption of any indigenous neighborhood protest, an easy trump.”

prelapsarianadj. characteristic of or belong to the time or state before the fall of humankind.

“Call me fanciful, but I think the name is on the loaded side, for it is here that the fall of man and the collapse of woman take place, and where the landscape . . . looks anything but prelapsarian.”

turbidadj. 1 muddy; thick; not clear 2 (of a style, etc.) confused; disordered.

“The director James Cameron is six feet two and fair, with paper-white hair and turbid blue-green eyes.”

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