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pastiche: msg#00016

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: pastiche

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The Word of the Day for February 17 is:

pastiche \pass-TEESH\ noun
*1 : a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work
that imitates the style of previous work; also : such
stylistic imitation
2 a : a musical, literary, or artistic composition made up
of selections from different works : potpourri b : hodgepodge

Example sentence;
When Alfred Tennyson was only 14, he wrote a clever
pastiche of Elizabethan drama.

Did you know?
It all began with macaroni. Our word "pastiche" is from
French, but the French word was in turn borrowed from Italian,
where the word is "pasticcio." "Pasticcio" is what the Italians
called a kind of "macaroni pie" (from the word "pasta").
English-speakers familiar with this multilayered dish had begun
to apply the name to various sorts of potpourris or hodgepodges
(musical, literary, or otherwise) by the 18th century. For over
a hundred years we were happy with "pasticcio," until we
discovered the French word "pastiche" sometime in the latter
part of the 1800s. Although we still occasionally
use "pasticcio" in its extended meaning, "pastiche" is now much
more common.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.







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