I am having difficulty with today's word bovarism. I understand the definition, but the example of it's usage was a bit mystifying. I am unsure how I would use this word appropriately. Would someone please give me another example of how to use this word in a sentence?
Welcome, beats, nice to have you with us. Sorry I can't help you, but for some strange reason, I feel impelled to say, "don't have a cow, man!"
1934 T. S. Eliot Eliz. Essays, I do not believe that any writer has ever exposed this bovarysme, the human will to see things as they are not, more clearly than Shakespeare. 1936 A. Huxley Olive Tree, The French philosopher, Jules de Gaultier, has said that one of the essential faculties of the human being is ‘the power granted to man to conceive himself as other than he is’. He calls this power ‘bovarism’ after the heroine of Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary. Ibid. People have bovarized themselves into the likeness of every kind of real or imaginary being. Ibid. Realizing, if only in words, his bovaristic dreams. 1952 H. Levin in Ess. in Crit. If to Bovarize is simply to daydream. Ibid. An all-pervasive state of mind: Bovarism.
(or you could read Madame Bovary, for the real thing : )
but for some strange reason, I feel impelled to say, "don't have a cow, man!"
Max, maybe even cows get to dream of a bigger existence than the twice daily trek to the milking shed and the once-a-year romp with Jim the artificial inseminator ...
In reply to:
1934 T. S. Eliot Eliz. Essays, I do not believe that any writer has ever exposed this bovarysme, the human will to see things as they are not, more clearly than Shakespeare. 1936 A. Huxley Olive Tree, The French philosopher, Jules de Gaultier, has said that one of the essential faculties of the human being is ‘the power granted to man to conceive himself as other than he is’. He calls this power ‘bovarism’ after the heroine of Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary. Ibid. People have bovarized themselves into the likeness of every kind of real or imaginary being. Ibid. Realizing, if only in words, his bovaristic dreams. 1952 H. Levin in Ess. in Crit. If to Bovarize is simply to daydream. Ibid. An all-pervasive state of mind: Bovarism.
I notice each of the sources explains Bovarism for their readers. Does this mean that each thought of it as a nonce word they were creating rather than as using a word that was already part of the lexicon?
Bingley
...or that it was so rare as to require glossing each time it was used.
In reply to:
but for some strange reason, I feel impelled to say, "don't have a cow, man!"
Max, maybe even cows get to dream of a bigger existence than the twice daily trek to the milking shed and the once-a-year romp with Jim the artificial inseminator ...
Undeniably. I guess this thread'll larn me good not to go making strained bovine references to The Simpsons in the august, rarified atmosphere of AWADtalk.
Max said, "Duh!": Undeniably. I guess this thread'll larn me good not to go making strained bovine references to The Simpsons in the august, rarified atmosphere of AWADtalk
Me, too. At least I think it was The Simpsons I was referring to.
>Max said, "Duh!"
just a pedantic observation: if you're talking Simpsons, shouldn't that more properly be "D'oh!"?
postscript: http://www.angelfire.com/nh/doh/
tsuwm comments, pendantically: just a pedantic observation: if you're talking Simpsons, shouldn't that more properly be "D'oh!"?
No argument. I speak, read and write the Zild version of English and only understand spoken Simpsonese. I must defer to all Simpsonese scholars in good standing ...