Wondrous Words Wednesday
New To Me Words

This would usually be my post as part of the ‘Wondrous Words Wednesday’ meme, which is hosted by the lovely Kathy @ BermudaOnion blog. However, it looks as though Kathy is taking a well-earned hiatus, so I am sending her all Best Wishes and hope to have her back again very soon, she is sorely missed 🙂

I have so many new to me words stacking up, that I thought I would share just a few of them with you anyway, in the hope that Kathy won’t mind too much!

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This period murder/mystery has certainly brought forth a real plethora of new to me words!

“The typography was too grand and overreaching for the simple poems, Julia could see now, and the only illustration shamelessly modelled after Bruce Roger’s Ronsard to frame the title and colophon, but she loved the little book regardless.”

“Philip allowed Julia to keep what she wished from the library – she’d selected a quarto German incunable with picaresque woodcuts and the prize little Aldine 16mos (none of which she could read, then or now).

“Feeling like a pampered odalisque (albeit in a lemon shantung morning frock), Julia again surveyed the room.”

“It was soon clear that Mrs. Warde was the most knowledgeable bookman in the room. She talked of Updike and Rogers, Goudy and Rollins, and a type and lettering man named Bill Dwiggins whose work might outshine them all. As if they’d been friends for years, Bea and Julia began to trade book hound gossip: of misspelled vanity watermarks; of the binder who boxed up the trimmed deckles as per his client’s instructions to save them …”

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COLOPHON –

In publishing, a colophon is a brief statement containing information about the publication of a book, such as the place of publication, the publisher, and the date of publication. A colophon may also be emblematic or pictorial in nature. Colophons were formerly printed at the ends of books, but in modern works they are usually located at the verso of the title-leaf.

INCUNABLE –

An incunable, or sometimes incunabulum, is a book, pamphlet, or broadside printed in Europe before the 16th century. Incunabula are not manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. As of 2014, there are about 30,000 distinct known incunable editions extant, but the probable number of surviving copies in Germany alone is estimated at around 125,000. Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000.

ODALISQUE –

An odalisque was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan.

DECKLES –

A deckle is a removable wooden frame or “fence” used in manual papermaking.

In a related sense, it can also mean deckle edge paper—a type of industrially produced paper with rough cut, distressed edges used in the book trade.

Deckle can also refer to the fatty part of a cut of brisket.

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In fact, make that five words for today’s post, as I have just spotted another new to me word in one of the definition sentences:

“An odalisque was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan.”

SERAGLIO – A seraglio or serail is the sequestered living quarters used by wives and concubines in an Ottoman household. 

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