I do love a well-used word. In a report on the Chinese Three Gorges Dam project and the consequent flooding of fields and villages in this week’s New Yorker, Peter Hessler says of a fellow building a fishing boat:
Huang is shirtless, a skinny, square-jawed man with efficient ropelike muscles. Later, when I ask if he’s worried about the boat’s not being tested before the water rises, he gives me the slightly annoyed look of a shipwright hassled by diluvian reporters. Huang Zongming is a righteous man, and he knows that his boat will float.
Well played, sir! Deucedly well played!
And, speaking of words, there’s a lexicographical examination of “blandishment” over at The Discouraging Word today (no permalinks).
When the flood comes can we then say the Ah! the reporter maybe antediluvian ? just asking;
Very nice indeed.
antediluvian is an under-rated word according to good ol another reporter, stephen thanabalan, deluge extraordinaire. By the way the New Yorker should be put up for lexicographical examination if you ask me