Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Daily Vocabulary

constable: a police officer with limited authority, usually in a small town. I love the word constable. In the times when the family of Charlemagne was dropping out of power, fading and falling and ceasing to exist, many great officers rose from strange ranks: the Counts of the Stables, masters of horse. Comes Stabuli, which became eventually constable. Now there's no real relation, of course. They don't ride, they don't manage horses, they don't do much of anything related to equine matters. But that's fine. I still love the word, and the notion of a local policeman, working part time in a small town in the Midlands.

There's also the rather famous painter. He does lovely work, but I'm not an art historian, and I mainly know the name, not anything about him. The painting above is typical of his work: pastoral, excellent execution, but not likely to be anyone's favorite painting. Still, a lovely last name, right?

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