From tjenkins@ruf.rice.edu Sun Apr  1 16:52:33 2001
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Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 18:52:31 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Thomas E. Jenkins" <tjenkins@ruf.rice.edu>
To: <classics@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: The Invention of Love
In-Reply-To: <001301c0bb03$a7d935a0$b4cb64a8@jfgannon>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.33.0104011842270.2036-100000@kennel.ruf.rice.edu>
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J. F. Gannon wrote:

> Housman would enjoy--I would prefer to think he does enjoy--the
> absurdity of "lambent wit".  Brantley is not a bad sort but he has no
> idea what "lambo" means or of the risks of piling up adjectives to
> show one has a large supply.

Perhaps I'm of the denser sort (oh, this is most certainly true), but why
is 'lambent wit' absurd? Seems like a perfectly valid analogy to e.g.
'scintillating wit', with the root _lambo_ meaning 'to lick (like
flame)'. The OED records the following three usages:

d. fig. Of wit, style, etc.: Playing lightly and brilliantly over its
subjects; gracefully sportive.

*	1871 Morley J. de Maistre in Crit. Misc. i. (1878) 112 A humour
now and then a little sardonic, but more often genial and lambent.

*	1879 O. W. Holmes Motley viii. 59 Lambent phrases in stately
articles.

*	1880 Disraeli Endym. lxxvii, The style so picturesque and lambent!

That said, I _do_ think Brantley's light/flame/gloom metaphor a bit of
overkill in the first paragraph, but the usage itself can hardly be
faulted, no?

-Tom Jenkins

+------------------------------------------------------------+
|   Thomas E. Jenkins      http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~tjenkins |
|   tjenkins@rice.edu      ph. 713-348-5312 fax 713-348-2797 |
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