San Diego is a city of neighborhoods. (“Jay, please name for me the city that is not a ‘city of neighborhoods.’” You got me there.) My Impromptus today is a San Diego journal, replete with photos. You may find it interesting: here.
Some mail? My Impromptus on Monday began with the following sentence: “On Saturday, many Americans rose very early in the morning to see King Charles coronated in London. I was still abed — but I had a memory of 1981.” I went on to talk about the wedding of this same Charles and a lady named “Diana.”
Elsewhere in that column, I talked about the word “diction.” Many people take it to mean “elocution” or “enunciation” — which it does. But it also means “word choice” — how we apply the words at our disposal.
Several readers wrote me to say, in essence, “What’s the matter with your diction?! ‘Coronated’? ‘Coronated’? The word is ‘crowned’!” It is, yes — but also “coronated.” “To crown,” “to coronate.” Why did I say “coronated”?
Well, as I think about it: because it’s a fun word; because it goes with “coronation”; because it’s unusual — offbeat. Bill Buckley once described writing as “playing with words.” He was also once reproached for using the word “irenic.” “Why did you use that weird word,” said his critic, “when it simply means ‘peaceful’?” WFB checked out the context — then answered, “Ah — I must have desired the third syllable.”
He cared about rhythm, he cared about music.
Wanna photo? A week and a half ago, I published a couple of bird photos by Hans Goeckner, our physicist from the University of Illinois, Chicago. At the end of a note, he writes,
I’ll leave you with a killdeer . . . It’s my first really good photo of a killdeer (in as long as I can remember), and it was taken with my “carry-around” camera that is mostly zoom lens.
Nice:
