I’m interested in the various forms of loquaciousness. Mine is one of backing up several paces behind the point to which I intend to arrive, forming a line of logical steps tending to bore the listener by about sub-point three. Then there is loquacious embodied in the nonsensical stream of thought.
The other day, I overheard a new category: loquacious as ’speaking in order to sound determined, even terse.” This would be the seemingly stoic words of decision, yet utterly empty verbiage.
I heard: “It is what it is, we did what we had to do.”
Two statues in the pantheon of cliches. Paired, they seemed so square-jawed. Yet, ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’
Made it to another year of DC’s Ellington Jazz Festival. This is the city of free museums and, once every early fall, freee outdoor entertainment under the obelisk. After Paquito D’Rivera shook off any hint of old age, I finally saw how McCoy Tyner gets his signature sound out of a piano, with a combination he at some point mastered of tickling and chopping at the thing.
We need to dispense with the phrase “team of mavericks.”
Maverick:
1. An unbranded range animal, especially a calf that has become separated from its mother, traditionally considered the property of the first person who brands it.
2. One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter.
The definition of “maverick” precludes there being a team of them. McCain/Palin can, without violating semantics, refer to their ticket as a “couple of mavericks.” This might call our attention to what their catch-phrase really means: that they propose serious, independent debate between themselves, and that (according to their maverick natures) they won’t really listen to the others’ advise.
Late Update:
I came across
this piece in the Times giving the etymology of “maverick.” Turns out the Maverick family is none too happy about the word’s late usage.
