Showing posts with label stieg larsson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stieg larsson. Show all posts

Saturday, February 12, 2011

The word of the day is pace:


< classical Latin pāce, ablative of pāx peace (see peace n.), as used both in phrases with possessive pronoun, e.g. pāce tuā by your leave, and in phrases with genitive of the person whose leave or favour is sought. Compare earlier pace tanti viri adv.pace tanti viri dixerim phr.(Show Less)
 

  With due deference to (a named person or authority); despite.Used chiefly as a courteous or ironic apology for a difference of opinion about to be expressed.


"She recalled, for example, that the manuscript had opened with an extensive description of a flower, which, as she put it, was 'a little bit boring.'  She got Larsson to take that out...

However much the book was revised, it should have been revised more.  The opening may have been reworked, as Gedin says, but it still features an episode - somebody telling somebody else at length (twelve pages!) about a series of financial crimes peripheral to the main plot - that, by wide consensus, is staggeringly boring.  (And, pace Gedin, it is preceded by a substantial description of a flower.)"

 - Joan Acocella, "Man of Mystery: Why do people love Stieg Larsson's novels?", 10 January 2011 The New Yorker

Friday, February 11, 2011

The word of the day is intestate:


< Latin intestāt-us, < in- (in- prefix3) + testātus, past participle of testārī to bear witness, to make a will. Compare French intestat (13th cent. in Godefroy Compl.).
 Of a person: Not having made a will  (OED)



"When Swedes die intestate, everything is awarded to their kin -  a strange law in a country where unregistered unions are almost the rule.  In any case, Larsson's money has gone to the two surviving members of his immediate family, his father and his brother."

 - Joan Acocella, "Man of Mystery: Why do people love Stieg Larsson's novels?", 10 January 2011 The New Yorker