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Okay, I need an excuse to attempt another drabunculus. Yes, I've ignored enough daily drabbles to have enough words for a drabunculus.... *whistles innocently*
(First, though, the boring bit: The words of the last four days. Yes, four. Blame insta-drabbling. Blame lack of motivation. Blame...okay, just blame me.)
aberrant \a-BERR-unt; AB-ur-unt\, adjective:
Markedly different from an accepted norm; Deviating from the ordinary or natural type; abnormal.
Examples
"The impulse toward individual expression is a recent and a possibly aberrant one in art."
-Nicholas Delbanco, "From Echoes Emerge Original Voices," New York Times, June 21, 1999
"These characters are so wild and aberrant they are close to appearing lunatics."
-Bosley Crowther, "Who's Afraid of Audacity?" New York Times, July 10, 1966
"But I could never accept the aberrant dictates of socialist realism which ruled out all mystery and turned literary activity into a propaganda exercise."
-Mario Vargas Llosa, Making Waves
Etymology
Aberrant comes from Latin aberro, aberrare, "to wander off, to lose one's way," from ab, "away from" + erro, errare, "to wander."
lackadaisical \lack-uh-DAY-zih-kuhl\, adjective:
Lacking spirit or liveliness; showing lack of interest; languid; listless.
Examples
"Drowsy from the heat and from fatigue, he dozed to the steady lackadaisical clips of the mule's shoes."
-Patricia Powell, The Pagoda
"There was an oddly lackadaisical inflection to his speech. A sense of merely going though the motions."
-Lesley Hazleton, Driving To Detroit
"The very title, Hours of Idleness, which the young lord affixed to his maiden volume, sufficiently indicated the lackadaisical spirit in which he came before the public."
-J. F. A. Pyre, "Byron in Our Day," The Atlantic, April 1907
"The simple fact is, whether we admit it or not, there's never been an 'intelligence' or 'achievement' test on which the smart and industrious have not done better than the dumb and the lackadaisical."
-Jonah Goldberg, "Stupid Aptitude Test," National Review, July 1, 2002
Etymology
Lackadaisical comes from the expression lackadaisy, a variation of lackaday, itself a shortening of "alack the (or a) day!"
Synonyms
idle, inattentive, lazy, lethargic
abjure \ab-JUR\, transitive verb:
1. To renounce under oath.
2. To renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to reject; repudiate.
3. To abstain from; to shun.
Examples
"abjure, on his knees, his heretical views that the Earth moves around the Sun."
- Alan Gurney, Below the Convergence
"He closed his eyes as he raised the goblet to his lips and took a small sip of the cool liquid, and then his face paled as he understood how sublime the taste of the forbidden drink was, and how easily one might become enslaved to it. There and then he resolved to abjure it totally."
-A. B. Yehoshua, A Journey to the End of the Millennium
"In the mid-1970's, a young European couple abjure middle-class comforts in favor of travel to India, where the wife, Sophie, grows disillusioned with Eastern spiritualism just as her husband, Matteo, is swept up in it."
-Laurel Graeber, "New and Noteworthy Paperbacks," New
York Times, January 12, 1997
Etymology
Abjure comes from Latin abjurare, "to deny upon oath," from ab-, "away" + jurare, "to swear." It is related to jury, "a body of persons sworn to give a verdict on a given matter."
Synonyms
recant, renounce, forswear.
sinecure \SY-nih-kyur; SIN-ih-\, noun:
An office or position that requires or involves little or no responsibility, work, or active service.
Examples
"I was fortunate to receive the. . . offer, which in practical terms was a sinecure."
-David Freeman, One of Us
"Julian Poe, a wealthy old Estonian, offers what looks like a sinecure: Bennett will live in comfort in Monte Carlo and pretend to be Poe, thus enabling Poe to fulfill his residency requirement in Monte Carlo while continuing to live in Provence without paying French taxes."
-"Eat, Drink and Be Wary," New York Times, June 9, 1996
"When they married, Pu Yi was, officially, employed as a gardener at the Peking Botanical Gardens. In fact this sinecure... only lasted three years, during which time he did very little actual gardening."
-"Obituary: Li Shuxian," Independent, June 11, 1997
Etymology
Sinecure is from Medieval Latin sine cura, "without care (of souls)," from Latin sine, "without" + cura, "care." Originally the term signified an ecclesiastical benefice without the care of souls.
Every father asks himself: Which is his favorite?
~oOo~
Fëanaro came first, screaming as though enraged at being born—or perhaps eager to seize the world between his teeth.
He was aberrant from the beginning, disturbingly precocious. He watched when a child should sleep. His eyes were sparks, like light on water. His hands didn’t bumble and wave in the ways of an infant: He grasped the air, objects, me with the certainty of possession.
And he asked questions that I could not answer, and his eyes went flat with disappointment at my silence.
Already, I have let you down?
I made up my mind not to fail him.
~oOo~
So I ask myself of my three sons. But how can I choose? Like choosing between the bright, distant stars, the velvet-soft petals of a daisy on my cheek, and the ground that saves me from falling, my three sons are each different and special in his own rights.
~oOo~
Fëanaro was nearly grown when I became twice a father.
Where his brother snapped with the ferocity of a whip, lashing fruitlessly against the air, Nolofinwë pondered things with the expression of an ancient man. He delighted in the tedium of ruling a kingdom: adding columns of figures, writing lists, compiling polls.
To please him, I tried to offer him a sinecure.
No. It was our first argument, and he stormed from my office with a ruthless determination unlike him. He delved into the library and compiled research that made his elders look blushingly indolent, about the topic of paving materials.
~oOo~
I cannot choose! I will not choose, for I sense that such a choice seals my fate with the weight of earth upon a grave.
~oOo~
Given the ambitions of his brothers, I failed Arafinwë in his early life.
I gifted him with books and appointed tutors to teach him and found him daydreaming with his gaze fixed with lackadaisical ardor upon the distant sea, chin in hands.
Bitter at the ridiculous feud between his brothers, I would retire to my office to pace, the weary floor creaking beneath my feet. Back and forth, back and forth. Then: a knock.
It was Arafinwë, his face wrinkled with concern. “If I sang you a lullaby, Father,” he asked, “would you allow yourself to be at peace?”
~oOo~
And so I abjure—or I settle to love most the one in my sights at the moment.
And![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
allie_meril had a wrecked day, and so I have written a drabble in her honor. So, Allie, here's your drabble. Wish I could give you more, but here it is, with a dose of {{{{huggles}}}}
(Eat a sugar cookie for me ;-P)
The words on the page are as fuzzy as the clouds, where I wish I could dwell instead of here.
My ears feel stuffed with cotton—but yet, I hear a harper in the street, a wren trilling, the summer breeze in the oak outside.
I force my eyes to focus on books until tears burn my eyes, but the smell of roses means more to me than the ancient tales of heroes.
At the end of the day, I am a disappointment.
At the end of the day, my father kisses me goodnight and says, “Arafinwë, I love you.”
(First, though, the boring bit: The words of the last four days. Yes, four. Blame insta-drabbling. Blame lack of motivation. Blame...okay, just blame me.)
aberrant \a-BERR-unt; AB-ur-unt\, adjective:
Markedly different from an accepted norm; Deviating from the ordinary or natural type; abnormal.
Examples
"The impulse toward individual expression is a recent and a possibly aberrant one in art."
-Nicholas Delbanco, "From Echoes Emerge Original Voices," New York Times, June 21, 1999
"These characters are so wild and aberrant they are close to appearing lunatics."
-Bosley Crowther, "Who's Afraid of Audacity?" New York Times, July 10, 1966
"But I could never accept the aberrant dictates of socialist realism which ruled out all mystery and turned literary activity into a propaganda exercise."
-Mario Vargas Llosa, Making Waves
Etymology
Aberrant comes from Latin aberro, aberrare, "to wander off, to lose one's way," from ab, "away from" + erro, errare, "to wander."
lackadaisical \lack-uh-DAY-zih-kuhl\, adjective:
Lacking spirit or liveliness; showing lack of interest; languid; listless.
Examples
"Drowsy from the heat and from fatigue, he dozed to the steady lackadaisical clips of the mule's shoes."
-Patricia Powell, The Pagoda
"There was an oddly lackadaisical inflection to his speech. A sense of merely going though the motions."
-Lesley Hazleton, Driving To Detroit
"The very title, Hours of Idleness, which the young lord affixed to his maiden volume, sufficiently indicated the lackadaisical spirit in which he came before the public."
-J. F. A. Pyre, "Byron in Our Day," The Atlantic, April 1907
"The simple fact is, whether we admit it or not, there's never been an 'intelligence' or 'achievement' test on which the smart and industrious have not done better than the dumb and the lackadaisical."
-Jonah Goldberg, "Stupid Aptitude Test," National Review, July 1, 2002
Etymology
Lackadaisical comes from the expression lackadaisy, a variation of lackaday, itself a shortening of "alack the (or a) day!"
Synonyms
idle, inattentive, lazy, lethargic
abjure \ab-JUR\, transitive verb:
1. To renounce under oath.
2. To renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to reject; repudiate.
3. To abstain from; to shun.
Examples
"abjure, on his knees, his heretical views that the Earth moves around the Sun."
- Alan Gurney, Below the Convergence
"He closed his eyes as he raised the goblet to his lips and took a small sip of the cool liquid, and then his face paled as he understood how sublime the taste of the forbidden drink was, and how easily one might become enslaved to it. There and then he resolved to abjure it totally."
-A. B. Yehoshua, A Journey to the End of the Millennium
"In the mid-1970's, a young European couple abjure middle-class comforts in favor of travel to India, where the wife, Sophie, grows disillusioned with Eastern spiritualism just as her husband, Matteo, is swept up in it."
-Laurel Graeber, "New and Noteworthy Paperbacks," New
York Times, January 12, 1997
Etymology
Abjure comes from Latin abjurare, "to deny upon oath," from ab-, "away" + jurare, "to swear." It is related to jury, "a body of persons sworn to give a verdict on a given matter."
Synonyms
recant, renounce, forswear.
sinecure \SY-nih-kyur; SIN-ih-\, noun:
An office or position that requires or involves little or no responsibility, work, or active service.
Examples
"I was fortunate to receive the. . . offer, which in practical terms was a sinecure."
-David Freeman, One of Us
"Julian Poe, a wealthy old Estonian, offers what looks like a sinecure: Bennett will live in comfort in Monte Carlo and pretend to be Poe, thus enabling Poe to fulfill his residency requirement in Monte Carlo while continuing to live in Provence without paying French taxes."
-"Eat, Drink and Be Wary," New York Times, June 9, 1996
"When they married, Pu Yi was, officially, employed as a gardener at the Peking Botanical Gardens. In fact this sinecure... only lasted three years, during which time he did very little actual gardening."
-"Obituary: Li Shuxian," Independent, June 11, 1997
Etymology
Sinecure is from Medieval Latin sine cura, "without care (of souls)," from Latin sine, "without" + cura, "care." Originally the term signified an ecclesiastical benefice without the care of souls.
Every father asks himself: Which is his favorite?
Fëanaro came first, screaming as though enraged at being born—or perhaps eager to seize the world between his teeth.
He was aberrant from the beginning, disturbingly precocious. He watched when a child should sleep. His eyes were sparks, like light on water. His hands didn’t bumble and wave in the ways of an infant: He grasped the air, objects, me with the certainty of possession.
And he asked questions that I could not answer, and his eyes went flat with disappointment at my silence.
Already, I have let you down?
I made up my mind not to fail him.
So I ask myself of my three sons. But how can I choose? Like choosing between the bright, distant stars, the velvet-soft petals of a daisy on my cheek, and the ground that saves me from falling, my three sons are each different and special in his own rights.
Fëanaro was nearly grown when I became twice a father.
Where his brother snapped with the ferocity of a whip, lashing fruitlessly against the air, Nolofinwë pondered things with the expression of an ancient man. He delighted in the tedium of ruling a kingdom: adding columns of figures, writing lists, compiling polls.
To please him, I tried to offer him a sinecure.
No. It was our first argument, and he stormed from my office with a ruthless determination unlike him. He delved into the library and compiled research that made his elders look blushingly indolent, about the topic of paving materials.
I cannot choose! I will not choose, for I sense that such a choice seals my fate with the weight of earth upon a grave.
Given the ambitions of his brothers, I failed Arafinwë in his early life.
I gifted him with books and appointed tutors to teach him and found him daydreaming with his gaze fixed with lackadaisical ardor upon the distant sea, chin in hands.
Bitter at the ridiculous feud between his brothers, I would retire to my office to pace, the weary floor creaking beneath my feet. Back and forth, back and forth. Then: a knock.
It was Arafinwë, his face wrinkled with concern. “If I sang you a lullaby, Father,” he asked, “would you allow yourself to be at peace?”
And so I abjure—or I settle to love most the one in my sights at the moment.
And
allie_meril had a wrecked day, and so I have written a drabble in her honor. So, Allie, here's your drabble. Wish I could give you more, but here it is, with a dose of {{{{huggles}}}}(Eat a sugar cookie for me ;-P)
The words on the page are as fuzzy as the clouds, where I wish I could dwell instead of here.
My ears feel stuffed with cotton—but yet, I hear a harper in the street, a wren trilling, the summer breeze in the oak outside.
I force my eyes to focus on books until tears burn my eyes, but the smell of roses means more to me than the ancient tales of heroes.
At the end of the day, I am a disappointment.
At the end of the day, my father kisses me goodnight and says, “Arafinwë, I love you.”
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