Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

poem-with alacrity May 30, 2015

(for DG)  🙂

In whatever capacity

you deal with animousity,

develop a good strategy

to sort out dreaded calumny,

then avoid falling into laxity

and resolve it with alacrity!

.

.

Another poem dedicated (with tongue in cheek) to Outlander author, Diana Gabaldon.  The phrase ‘with alacrity’ appears frequently in Outlander, and whenever it does I shout enthusiastically “WITH ALACRITY!” and chuckle.  (Alacrity means haste, FYI).  It’s silly, but it is not much different than throwing boxes of KD at a Barenaked Ladies concert or toast during Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Neither of which I’ve done, unfortunately, so I have to settle with shouting to a book.  Kind of sad, really.)  😉

 

6 Responses to “poem-with alacrity”

  1. onewithclay Says:

    Is that how Animosity is spelled in Canada? 🙂

  2. Never rest on laurels, lest they develop mildew!

    • I was impressed in Italy (Venice, I think?) when we came upon a graduation party where one young man was wearing a laurel wreath around his head. I made some comment about it in Italian (“nice hat” or some such nonsense) and his apparently very proud female relation informed me that he had graduated with honours, so I congratulated her most heartily. It’s a shame I’ve forgotten all my Italian. When I remember these conversations I had when we were there, it quite astonishes me. I started memorizing vocab and phrases with an iPhone app in January, and by the time we were there in March I had 3000 words. We were there 3 weeks. A year later, I couldn’t remember anything. That’s some fast acting linguistic mildew, I’d say!

  3. mpmckibbon Says:

    Terry Brooks has a favourite adverb – “soundlessly” and whenever we read his books aloud to our children they would count the number of “soundlessly” in each chapter. I don’t know why an editor doesn’t rap his knuckles for the repetition. Other than that we love his books. I guess we all have our pet words. I must confess to having several but I’m trying to reform. 😀 P.S. I haven’t found any of your faves yet.

    • lol
      I’m writing a short story today, and as my own personal joke, I inserted “with dramatic alacrity”. 😉 I do have some faves but my editor makes me re-phrase them.


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