Monday, July 18, 2011

assiduous



assiduous [əˈsɪdʒuəs] a.

1.) Of persons or agents: Constant in application to the business in hand, persevering, sedulous, unwearyingly diligent.
2.) Constantly endeavouring to please, obsequiously attentive. arch.
3.) Of actions: Unremitting, persistent, constant.
4.) Of things: Constant, regular. Obs. (O.E.D. 2nd Edition).

Etymology: From Latin assiduus, from assidere, to attend to : ad- + sedere, to sit.

   "John Eglinton looked in the tangled glowworm of his lamp.
   —The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake, he said, and got out of it as quickly and as best he could.
   —Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
   Portals of discovery opened to let in the quaker librarian, softcreakfooted, bald, eared and assiduous" (Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922).

(Telemachus and Mentor, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1730)
________________________________________________________

Hi, all. This week's honors in the "Climbing the Mountain" challenge go to shari. She wrote:
The drawing she made of her mother was prima facie a propitiatory offering; more beauty was found in the lineament of the portrait than in reality. The rendering seemed emulous of Toulouse Lautrec, though it was unlikely, as her art studies were her violon d'Ingres, which she enjoyed hermetically.
Nice work, there, shari. It actually reads fairly well, considering. An honorable mention also goes to D4, who wrote a hilarious passage that made me question his sanity. (A highlight was: "a prima facie point of view would assume this meant he'd love condoms, when in reality, he's emulous towards them, wishing to some day become a latex balloon".) So, the challenge for next Monday is to use 5 of subaltern, solipsism, atavism, inchoate, verdant, lucubrate, and hoi polloi in a paragraph. Good luck and thanks for reading!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

D4 wrote a story about a man wanting become a balloon? Post it! I read it!

shari said...

Woo hoo!! I won a word usage challenge! A banner day for me! :-)

By the way, the animal turned out to be an otter, after all. I found a photo of it, and it's just what I saw... too sinuous for a muskrat.

Katie said...

Cool word and as for the painting, interesting subject matter.

D4 said...

I probably should have saved that story, hehe. Fun times.

Unknown said...

Nice word.

Unknown said...

For some reason I read assiduous as insidious which was rather confusing.

I really have to attempt one of the paragraphs and see what my crazy brain can come up with.

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Assiduously written word challenge entries -- bravo!

PeaceLoveandSharpies said...

Poke me hard if I forget to send you my paragraph again. >:/

Meri said...

You are an assiduous scholar! :)

dwizzt said...

i'm an assiduous follower of this blog.

awesome word of the day.

themajessty said...

Love the painting.

DEZMOND said...

I came upon this word quite often in my translation work.
And Telemachus is one of the interesting mythical characters

A Beer for the Shower said...

I do like the word assiduous, but I'm a little more intrigued by the word 'softcreakfooted' in that quote.

Shaw said...

Finally, a word I already know

Daily Car Reviews said...

finally indeed.

MRanthrope said...

re: The Tree of Life
Yeah I get kind of giddy over camera tricks like that. I could see how Malick's dizzying/eccentric choice of shots might seem annoying, but I felt like he was pulling me on a uber detailed roller coaster...even if it was an extreme closeup of a face or blade of grass. ha. geeky I guess.

Post a Comment