Grammar Clinic

Meaning:  Investment of metal or emotional energy in a person, object or idea.                 Example: In 2004, Bowie had a heart attack, and he was recently rumored to be in poor health. Leading up to the release of ‘The Next Day,’ a jittery cathexis formed. Do we judge Bowie as we always have, […]

Meaning: To expose to shame or blame by means of falsehood and misrepresentation Example: Here, at last, was someone prepared publicly to speak up for the BBC when so many others were seeking to traduce and destroy it. 

Meaning: To consider or represent (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing: to give definite content and form to (a concept or idea). Example: The home is a haven to be sure. There neatness scrubs away history like grease while retaining the polished signs of the past and reifying the timeless. 

Meaning: The use of words whose sounds suggest the sense. Example: Chapman pointed out that what looks like variation in onomatopoeia is sometimes simply a rearranging of discrete sounds: clap clap in English becomes plec plec in Portuguese.

Meaning: Not to be avoided, changed, or resisted: inevitable. Example: Mr. Unkrich faced a dilemma. On the one hand, he believed that artists should not be restricted to ‘only telling stories about what they know and their own culture.’ But he also needed to safeguard against his ineluctable biases and blind spots, and ensure that his film didn’t ‘lapse into cliché

Meaning: A shield or breastplate emblematic of majesty that was associated with Zeus and Athena. Example: The security office is not part of the main White House staff operation. Located outside the West Wing, it has an independent director who is not a political appointee. Its work, however, falls under the broader aegis of the White House chief of staff’s office.

Meaning: Marked by compact precise expression without wasted words. Example: Holmqvist’s writing is spare in style, elegantly succinct, but the layers of the world she’s created are manifold.

Meaning: 1, Attracted to novelty. 2, Of the newest style or kind. Example: When they arrive in Memphis, they head to church, where Elvis’ uncle, the church’s reverend, is preaching about how this newfangled thing called rock is the devil’s music.

Meaning: A projecting part of a fortification. Example: For a century, the automobile has been a bastion of liberty, freeing up almost everybody from the tyranny of other people’s schedules.

Meaning: Something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality. Example: Geraldine was amused by the kitsch sold in the roadside souvenir shop, but she wasn’t tempted to buy anything.