Blog Marco

I was reading "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
Wasn't sure of some of the words...
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In "The Red-Headed League"

"It saved me from ennui," said Holmes.

Ennui is a noun and it means "mental weariness from idleness and lack of interest."

Does anyone every use the word ennui in a conversation now?
Why or how come this type of language becomes extinct in our daily conversations...?

"I'm suffering a bit of ennui..."
"Ennui has got the better of me..."

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In "The Naval Treaty"

"This gaudy relationshp did him little good at school."
Gaudy - Tastelessly showy

"...it seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket."
Piquant - pleasantly stimulating to the mind. (In other use it is - agreeably pungent, sharp or appetising.)

"You are the stormy petrel of crime, Watson. What is it?"
Petrel - Sea birl, usually flying far from land.

"...his people are of the Huguenot extraction..."
Huguenot - a French Calvinist of the 16th or 17th centuries
sub: Calvinist - an adherent of the theological doctrines of John Calvin

""Oh, if you find your own cases more interesting than mine--" said Holmes with some asperity.""
Asperity - sharpness of temper or tone.

"On the contrary. I have noticed that when he is off the trail he generally says so. It is when he is on the scent and is not quite absolutely sure yet that it is the right one that he is most taciturn."
Taciturn - saying little; uncommunicative.

"He was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom..."
Scion - descendant, younger member of a family (especially of noble nature) (Other usage - shoot of a plant, especially used for grafting or planting.

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The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

"He spoke in a slow staccato fashion..."
Staccato - characterized by short, clipped, rapid articulation.

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The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb

"The work appears to be light and the pay munificent."
Munificent - lavish: very generous; "distributed gifts with a lavish hand"; "the critics were lavish in their praise"; "a munificent gift"; "his father gave him a half-dollar and his mother a quarter and he thought them munificent"; "prodigal praise"; "unsparing generosity"; "his unstinted devotion"; "called for unstinting aid to Britain"

"I never saw a more inexorable face in my life."
Inexorable - grim: not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty; "grim determination"; "grim necessity"; "Russia's final hour, it seemed, approached with inexorable certainty"; "relentless persecution"; "the stern demands of parenthood"

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The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet

"A few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still gesticulating..."
Gesticulate - show, express or direct through movement; "He gestured his desire to leave"

"I should be happy to advance it without further parley from my own private purse."

"There are thirty-nine enormous beryls."
Beryl - The name of a family of stones, composed of a silicate of aluminum and glucinum (beryllium), that includes aquamarine, emerald, and morganite.

"On the contrary. your statement is singulary lucid."
Lucid - limpid: (of language) transparently clear; easily understandable; "writes in a limpid style"; "lucid directions"; "a luculent oration"- Robert Burton; "pellucid prose"; "a crystal clear explanation"; "a perspicuous argument"
sub: limpid - liquid: clear and bright; "the liquid air of a spring morning"; "eyes shining with a liquid luster"; "limpid blue eyes"

"Besides, she is not so very young. She is four-and-twenty."
>>Is this how people spoke one hundred years ago? Why can't they just say she is twenty-four?

"I ask you now, is such a theory tenable?"
Tenable - based on sound reasoning or evidence; "well-founded suspicions"

I understand that you give me carte blanche to act for you..."
Couldn't Sherlock just say:"Gimme permission to act for you..."?
Carte Blanche - complete freedom or authority to act

"I saw an ill dressed vagabond in the lane..."
Vagabond - anything that resembles a vagabond in having no fixed place; "pirate ships were vagabonds of the sea. A person without a permanent home who moves from place to place.
A vagrant; a tramp.
A wanderer; a rover.

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