Word: skewer
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Other changes are inconsistent. In the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, fardels is replaced, but the word bodkin remains. Why? "I expect all the ladies to know what a bodkin is," says Rowse in the general introduction to his edition. ("A long pin, or skewer," according to Rowse; "a short pointed weapon" like a dagger, according to the appropriate definition in the Oxford English Dictionary...
...year-old boy told of being whipped and threatened with blindness if he did not reveal where his father was. Another student described a soundproof torture room in Aleppo that featured a machine called "the black slave." Recounted the youth: "When switched on, a very hot and sharp metal skewer enters the rear, burning...
...basic shapes that make up the Elegies, held between bars or strung like meat on a skewer across the canvas, could hardly be simpler: black ovals or ragged beam-shaped forms that bear a resemblance to bullfighters' hats, black frames that evoke the deep shadow of doors in light-struck village walls. But out of these signs Motherwell has fashioned a resonant and funereal sequence of images that, despite its repetitions (when in doubt, paint an Elegy), is one of the few sustained tragic utterances in post-Picassoan art. He has always been faithful to the abstract expressionist dictum...
Parodies and caricatures, observed Aldous Huxley, are "the most penetrating of criticisms." These companion anthologies skewer English and American authors from Jonathan Swift (by Alexander Pope) to Raymond Chandler (by Woody Allen) with no tips on the foils...
Edmund Morris, a Theodore Roosevelt biographer, reminds us that invective can sting and skewer, yet bring admiration for the pronouncer. He spoke at the Smithsonian Institution last month on T.R. as a writer, noting that Roosevelt indulged in the biting phrase for the sheer joy of it. "One often heard the undertone of Homeric chuckling," said Morris, when Roosevelt delivered himself of another polished gem, "as if, after all, he loved the fun of hating what he hated." Few people could stay angry at such artistry and boyishness...