51吃瓜 of the Day
avant-garde
adjective
of or relating to the experimental treatment of artistic, musical, or literary material.
More about avant-garde
Avant-garde originally meant the 鈥渁dvance guard鈥� of an army or other major military force in the field (that sense is now replaced by vanguard, a shortened form of avant-garde). Avant-garde used in its military sense died out a little after 1800. Its current sense 鈥渢he advance group in any field, especially in the visual, literary, or musical arts,鈥� first appears in 1910. Avant-garde, spelled aduant garde, entered English in the second half of the 15th century.
how is avant-garde used?
He聽co-founded a futurist group that sought to transform Poland … through avant-garde literature.
Henson’s lesser-known works are tiny avant-garde masterpieces that are infused with the same humor, character, and vision as his enduring legacy.
avant-garde
More about waesucks
Waesucks or waesuck, 鈥渁las, woe (is me),鈥� is a Scots word composed of wae, the Scots form of woe, and suck or sucks, Scots variants of the noun sake, now used only in the expression 鈥渇or the sake of X, for X鈥檚 sake.鈥� But Robert Burns uses waesucks in The Holy Fair (1786), which makes waesucks a keeper.
how is waesucks used?
Waesucks! For him that gets nae lass, / Or lasses that hae naething!
But waesucks! night cam’ on at last, / And fiercely raged the furious blast; / And, what made waur his piteous case, / The storm blew keenly in his face …聽
waesucks
pleonasm
noun
the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy.
More about pleonasm
Pleonasm, 鈥渢he use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy,鈥� may be annoying or foolish, as in 鈥渇ree gift鈥� or 鈥渢rue fact,鈥� but not so in emphatic expressions such as 鈥淚 saw it with my own eyes.鈥� Pleonasm comes via Late Latin pleonasmus (where it is only a term in rhetoric), from Greek 辫濒别辞苍补蝉尘贸蝉 鈥渞edundancy, surplus, superabundance, (rhetoric) use of redundant words, lengthening of clauses, repetition,鈥� a derivative of 辫濒别辞苍谩锄别颈苍 鈥渢o be or have more than enough,鈥� which is itself derivative of 辫濒别铆艒苍, the comparative degree of 辫辞濒媒蝉 鈥渕uch, many.鈥� Pleonasm entered English in the early 17th century.
how is pleonasm used?
Federal foreign policy is a pleonasm. What foreign policy can a federal nation have except a national policy?
Like most writers, I can be a stickler about language, but anyone who hangs out with me for long enough will learn that I favor a certain ungrammatical turn of phrase: 鈥渢rue fact.鈥� Technically speaking, that expression is a pleonasm鈥攁 redundant description鈥攕ince all facts are, by definition, true.
pleonasm