sharpshooting, fend, workplace alienation permeates

Chirlane McCray, whose "early identity was profoundly shaped by feelings of alienation — because of her race, her gender and her evolving sexuality — is emerging as the ultimate insider: a mastermind behind the biggest political upset of the year."

 

'Once Upon a River'

By BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
Reviewed by JANE SMILEY

Bonnie Jo Campbell's solitary, sharpshooting heroine fends for herself in rural Michigan.

'Orientation: And Other Stories'

By DANIEL OROZCO
Reviewed by JOHN WILLIAMS

A sense of workplace alienation permeates this first story collection, which explores the limits of social interaction.

sharpshooting

(shärp'shū'tĭng)
n.

1. High proficiency in shooting firearms.
2. Accurate, often unexpected verbal or written attack.

(fĕnd)

v., fend·ed, fend·ing, fends. v.tr.

1. To ward off. Often used with off: fend off an attack.
2. Archaic. To defend.

v.intr.

1. To make an effort to resist: fend against the cold.
2. To attempt to manage without assistance: had to fend for ourselves until we were rescued.

[Middle English fenden, short for defenden, to defend. See defend.]

alienation  "異化"等

Pronunciation: /eɪlɪəˈneɪʃ(ə)n/

Translate alienation | into German | into Italian

noun

[mass noun]

• 1the state or experience of being alienated:a sense of alienation from our environment unemployment may generate a sense of political alienation
• (in Marxist theory) a condition of workers in a capitalist economy, resulting from a lack of identity with the products of their labour and a sense of being controlled or exploited.
• Psychiatry a state of depersonalization or loss of identity in which the self seems unreal, thought to be caused by difficulties in relating to society and the resulting prolonged inhibition of emotion.
• (also alienation effect) Theatre an effect, sought by some dramatists, whereby the audience remains objective and does not identify with the actors.

• 2 Law the transfer of the ownership of property rights: most leases contain restrictions against alienation

Origin:

late Middle English: from Latin alienatio(n-), from the verb alienare 'estrange', from alienus (see alien). The term alienation effect (1940s) is a translation of German Verfremdungseffekt