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IN SLOVAK 160 (220)
Projective lexicon of the Russian language October 29, 2006

Series "Words about language" (8)
Topic of the week: Letterform

Letters are perhaps the most stable and recognizable visual components of our life. They can briefly describe appearance, facial expressions, types of people, character traits. It is no coincidence that the letter in English is character, it has its own character. But character, in a sense, is a letter, a configuration of stable personality properties that can be perceived emblematically, in the form of iconic outlines.

Let us recall from Pushkin in “The History of the Village of Goryukhin”: “Then **, spreading his legs like the letter of a dick and putting his arms on his hips like a fert, made the following brief and expressive speech...” About this ** we can say that his pose is “hero-like” and “ Fert-shaped." It is possible to form other adjectives using the same model: “ A-shaped ”, “ B-shaped ”, “ B-shaped, T-shaped ”, etc. Pronounced: "ve-shaped", "um-shaped", "te-shaped", "e-shaped". Accordingly, nouns with the meaning of these properties are formed: “ P-image ”, “ I-image ”...

A letter can be used to outline a person’s figure or pose:

His wife is D-shaped . Homely, kind, but somehow square, as if she were carrying a little house closet and moving her legs under it.
woman is rushing at me I look, this kind of Z-shaped and wiping me away from my baby.
At the entrance to the palace there is a K-shaped grip, the devil himself is not his brother. I lower it and trim it W. to Sha! Let him be silent and kick his legs!
Imposing chatterbox, E-shaped . He wiggles his tongue incessantly. And at the same time he rocks as if in a rocking chair.
Surprisingly Y-shaped couple, directly adjusted to each other. He is a one, she is a zero, they walk arm in arm all the time.
You can’t really make friends with him, he’s self-shaped . Everything about yourself and for yourself. And he carries himself in exactly the same way: his chest is in a wheel, his leg is forward, he carries himself proudly and seems to push aside his interlocutor.

Letter similes can refer to personality, character, idea, essence:

He seems to be a pretty good person, but there is something beetle-like and F-shaped about him. It puffs up and spreads out in all directions. You can't grab it
His personality is complex, M-shaped . Up and down, solid teeth. It's like being on a roller coaster all the time with him. - So maybe it’s not just M , but MDP (manic-depressive psychosis)?
What is her character like? - B-shaped . Curly, ornate, cello-like. He makes one loop and immediately strings another on it. The figure of infinity can be seen in it.
I know I can rely on him. His character is U-shaped : simple, straight, strong. - Is this good? U-shapes around: vulgar, flat, rectangular. There are already enough
He’s kind of c-shaped , agrees to everything, is in tune with everything. A little more and it will close to zero.
In the SS, everything was gray and c-shaped .
His mind is T-shaped . He is a physicist by education, and a lyricist by vocation.
T-shape is in human nature. We are all transverse to ourselves.

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Aphorism

Modern dictionaries suffer from cowardice, because they dutifully record what has already been done, and do not say what needs to be done.

A.P. Herbert (AP Herbert) (1890-1971), English politician and writer.

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Memo

prohibitive - inclined to prohibit everything.

Or maybe it’s better not to ask for official paperwork? God forbid, you run into a forbidding official.
Why do we have such prohibitive morals? Everything that is not permitted is prohibited. But they have the opposite: everything that is not prohibited is permitted.

( issue 96 )

The publishing house "Higher School" published Mikhail Epstein's book " Word and Silence. Metaphysics of Russian Literature " (M., 2006). You can see the table of contents and abstract. In Moscow, it is sold (at the lowest price, without markup) in the store of the publishing house " Vysshaya Shkola " (Trubnaya Square, Neglinnaya St., 29/14), as well as in " Biblioglobus " (metro station Lubyanka, Myasnitskaya St., 6 /3), in the “Pedagogical Book” (corner of B. Dmitrovka and Kamergersky Ave.). The book can be purchased through online stores: here , here , here ...

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network project Mikhail Epstein's "The Gift of Words" has been published since April 2000. Every week, subscribers are sent several new words, with definitions and examples of use. These words are not in any dictionary, and yet they denote significant phenomena and concepts for which there has not yet been a place in the language and public consciousness. "Dar" also conducts discussions about the Russian language, discusses letters and suggestions from readers. “The Gift” can serve as a guide to word creation, an introduction to the world of linguistic fantasies and mental technologies. “The word controls the brain, the brain controls the hands, hands control the kingdoms” (Velimir Khlebnikov).

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PreDictionary - a collection of English neologisms by M. Epstein.

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