Word: boringness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Weather has to be the most underestimated topic of conversation. While it is always acceptable, and often even encouraged, to have scatological, revealingly personal or sexually graphic conversations with perfect strangers in dining halls, you are likely to be confronted with smirks and scornful looks if you start talking about...
Nothing would more damn a book about boredom than if it were boring. Patricia Meyer Spacks's Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind largely avoids that awkward possibility: as literary studies go, in fact, it's a real walk in the park.
The concept of boredom developed from being perceived as a moral failure in the 18th century, to an index of class arrogance and inadequate responsiveness to others in 19th century and finally to the universal motivating force it is seen as today. Specifically, Boswell and Johnson warned against the moral...
Before this time the idea of boredom was not necessary for an understanding of existence: athough people in the early 18th century may have led lives which from our standpoint would appear boring, they did not think of them as such. Spacks traces the term's appearance and development as...
A flaw of Spacks' book is that she protests too much: as if unsure of the validity of her thesis, she overwhelms us with putative evidence of the centrality of boredom as a phenomenon. This evidence often consists of veritable lists of the appearances of the word boring (in one...