How to Sound Really Clever by Hubert van den Bergh

Author:Hubert van den Bergh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

lucubrations (pl. noun) = pretentious writing (pronounced ‘luck-yoo-brey-shuhns’) from the Latin, lucubratio, from lucubrare: to work at night by lamplight (i.e. to have worked too many hours on a piece of writing, leading to too-careful elaboration, and, so, to the pretentious kind of writing that the word ‘lucubrations’ implies)

e.g. The public views academics as being lost in their own lucubrations

Lucullan

Lucullan (adj.) = (of food) lavish (pronounced ‘luck-kuhl-uhn’) for full explanation, see box below

e.g. Kim Jong Il of North Korea had fresh fish flown in from Japan: he liked to eat the resulting sashimi so fresh that he insisted the mouth of the fish still be moving when he took his first bite (to keep the fish twitching, Kim’s chef avoided the vital organs): such Lucullan meals were typical of the North Korean leader

‘Lucullan’ derives from the name of Licinius Lucullus, a Roman general from the 1st century BC famous for the fine banquets he laid on for guests.

So obsessed was Lucullus with food that, when, one night, his servants served him only one paltry course for dinner – simply because Lucullus was dining alone that particular evening – Lucullus asked them where the rest of the food was, demanding in a fit of gluttonous egomania, ‘What, did not you know, then, that today Lucullus dines with Lucullus?’

Lucullus introduced the cherry and the apricot to Rome, and was the only person in the city who could provide thrushes for gastronomic purposes all year round – he had his own breeding pens for the very purpose. It’s not much of a surprise, then, that today we use ‘Lucullan’ to describe a ‘very lavish’ banquet.

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