Magazines: critical cliches?

[carbro]

Unmisunderstably (or as an adjective, unmisunderstandable) is a great word. What is the name for a word that describes its own meaning? I'm sure Mel knows.

 

I recently called Carla Korbes "untakeyoureyesoffable." The problem is, she usually is just that, but I can't use the word again for the next eight or 10 years.

 

Oh, and for more examples like the one cited by djb, here's a slew: Bulwer-Lytton results.

[Guest sandik]

"Emerging"

 

Especially "emerging choreographer."

 

I'm guilty, I've used it, and it does indeed describe a particular point in someone's career, but it is so overused right now that I'm trying to excise it from my vocabulary. It just needs a rest, maybe a trip to the beach and a nice nap, and then it can come back.

 

I don't think I'm going to be able to use "pantherine," but I do love reading it.

[Alexandra]

Good one, sandi -- not a cliche (yet) but you've inspired me. Perhaps we could have "subsiding" choreographers?

 

"This is the 19th ballet Mr. Drekov, one of our pre-eminent subsiding choreographers, has created for the National Ballet of Dry Gulch, and what can one say ...."

[Paul Parish]

Choura, I'm totally craving your appellations....

 

Drekov is tip-top....

By the way, Isn't today Mr Balanchine's 100th birthday?

Mr Balanchine's 100th birthday today

Happy Birthday, Mr B.....

[Mel Johnson]

This is not about a cliché so much as it is about a style: That of the writer who has just been given a new Thesaurus and can't wait to try it out. The result is often similar to the style settled by Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers of Decatur, Georgia, who had found a rhyming dictionary, and committed the unforgettable "Rosalie Lee":

 

Many mellow Cydonian suckets

Sweet apples, anthosmial, divine,

From the ruby-rimmed berylline buckets

Star-gemmed, lily-shaped, hyaline;

Like the sweet golden goblet found growing

On the wild emerald cucumber-tree,

Rich, brilliant, like chrysoprase glowing

Was my beautiful Rosalie Lee.

 

Annabel's sister, no doubt. Of Chivers, it was said that "Poe finished the ruin of him begun by Shelley." Actually, Chivers knew Poe and started as his friend, but the latter soon was suing him for plagiarism, giving him a wholly undeserved notoriety.

 

It was at about the line "berylline buckets" that this writer did a Danny Thomas "spit take" with his coffee.

[Marga]

I've been tired of "pyrotechnical feats", "pyrotechnic dancing", etc. for quite some time.

 

Also, the "obligatory 32 fouettes".

[Funny Face]

"It had an organic quality." Oh please, I have to excuse myself and heave.

[Hans]

I hate that one too, Funny Face.