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The Wednesday Word - palimpsest
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Today's Wednesday word is palimpsest. It is a manuscript on which there more than one text has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible.
Here is a quote for it by Russell Hoban:
"Language is an archaeological vehicle ... the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history."
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1 comments :
I came across this very word a few days ago while reading "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-nez" one of several stories from "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle. The quote is "Holmes .... was engaged with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription upon a palimpsest." What a coincidence finding such an obscure word don't you agree.
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