perfect combination

For your amusement:

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/030707ta_talk_mead

http://www.newyorkish.com/newyorkish/2004/03/replacing_dr_zi.html

NK

Thanks so much for your post. Apropos your comment,

“… on 18 April 1783, ‘Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution,’ asked Dr. Johnson the lexicographer, whether there were any perfect synonyms in any language, which is to say, any wholly superfluous words, and was told, ‘Originally there were not; but by using words negligently, or in poetry, one word comes to be confounded with another.’”

against which Mallarme, a century later, defining the poet’s role:

Donner un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu
(To give a purer sense to tribal words)

and what’s more from Mallarme:

“The pure work implies the elocutionary disappearance of the poet, who yields place to the words, immobilized by the shock of their inequality; they take light from mutual reflection, like an actual train of fire over precious stones, replacing the old lyrical afflatus or the enthusiastic personal direction of the phrase.”

affectionately,

jerjer