A surreal play on words

Man Ray Violon D'Ingres

The original print of one of my favourite photographs has recently sold for a record amount. A thumping $US 12.4 million to be precise, around twice what was predicted. American photographer Man Ray’s image Le Violon d’Ingres was sold in May 2022 at a Christies, New York auction, with the unexpected price being attributed to…

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Say it better – words from other languages

Wabi sabi mural Kyoto

You can become a better traveller by paying attention to words that don’t exist in English, says travel writer Brian Johnston. He went on to talk about a Dutch word voopret, which literally translates as ‘pre-fun’, and might be used to describe the feeling of excitement we get when planning a trip. While foreign travel…

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A little something extra

La Belle Esplanade NOLA Gail Holloway

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get a little something extra. Like when you order a half dozen doughnuts or potato cakes and they throw in one more as a bonus. In New Orleans they have a local word for that – Lagniappe. We picked up one excellent word, a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice, limber, expressive, handy word — ‘lagniappe’. They pronounce it lanny- yap. It is Spanish — so they said.  MarkTwain, ‘Life on the Mississippi’. On my first visit to New Orleans in 2015,…

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