Word of the day: Pusillanimity
Feb. 26th, 2006 08:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterPronunciation: "pyü-s&-l&-'ni-m&-tE also "pyü-z&-
Function: noun
: the quality or state of being pusillanimous : COWARDLINESS
I had forgotten about this word, which rolls off the tongue so nicely. I've never heard it used in everyday conversation, though. It appeared towards the very end of The Red and the Black. I've mentioned the book once or twice here. My cousin, who was working on a master's degree in English, recommended it to me because it was one of his favorite books. I think that what he liked was the emotional hyperbole. I was frustrated at times by the translation I ended up reading in Tempe because it dragged at points, and I'm not sure if the dragging was due to the language barrier or the original text.
Back when I was a more serious student of Spanish, I came to greatly enjoy the poems and stories that we read in Spanish, and appreciate how translations change the nature of the work. Somehow, Spanish poetry is much more romantic than English poetry--the roots of the language contribute to that success. I've been tempted, on and off, to learn French, but I have a feeling that I would stumble horribly on pronunciation. Plus, there's the whole lack-of-time thing.
Function: noun
: the quality or state of being pusillanimous : COWARDLINESS
I had forgotten about this word, which rolls off the tongue so nicely. I've never heard it used in everyday conversation, though. It appeared towards the very end of The Red and the Black. I've mentioned the book once or twice here. My cousin, who was working on a master's degree in English, recommended it to me because it was one of his favorite books. I think that what he liked was the emotional hyperbole. I was frustrated at times by the translation I ended up reading in Tempe because it dragged at points, and I'm not sure if the dragging was due to the language barrier or the original text.
Back when I was a more serious student of Spanish, I came to greatly enjoy the poems and stories that we read in Spanish, and appreciate how translations change the nature of the work. Somehow, Spanish poetry is much more romantic than English poetry--the roots of the language contribute to that success. I've been tempted, on and off, to learn French, but I have a feeling that I would stumble horribly on pronunciation. Plus, there's the whole lack-of-time thing.
