"Soupçon", by the way, is a new acquisition to my vocabulary. You know how I quite enjoy the sporadic lapse into français . This new term means a trace, a little bit. (Pronunciation available here , if you genuinely give a shite) The sound of it is a little to pretentious to be slipped casually into discussion, but I think I will throw it into my written patter on occasion.
Another thing I learned about today is "tilting at windmills". I didn't so much learn it as rediscover it. See, I'd read that today is the 403rd anniversary of the first publication of Cervantes' Don Quixote . And that got me to mulling over the term "tilting at windmills" which I'd heard before, and I knew it owed its origins to Cervantes' big novel, but I wasn't entirely sure what it meant. I haven't ever read Don Quixote but I did know there were windmills in it, that the titular Don hallucinates to be something else. Anyways I looked up "tilting at windmills" and got the full 411...
"Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means "attacking imaginary enemies." The word “tilt,” here, means “fight.” This idiomatic phrase originated in the novel Don Quixote, and is often used today in reference to persistent engagement in a futile activity. At one point in the novel, Don Quixote fights windmills that he imagines to be giants. Quixote sees the windmill blades as the giant's arms "
I think it was the use of the word "tilting" to mean "attacking" that threw me off. But anyways....me likey. It's a rather poetic turn of phrase. Not only do I want to integrate it into everday conversation more frequently, but it also has the makings of a marvelous title. Y'know like "chartreuse poop" from last week.
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