rapier, épée, lexiphanes, "rapier wit". Elon Musk’s promises at Tesla’s robotaxi launch were long on bombast and short on reality. The road will be lengthy, and the carmaker will have tough competition along the way

“A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando ‘The longest and most charming love letter in literature’, playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf’s close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth’s England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Costantinople, awakes to find that he is a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.

Virginia Woolf 的相片。

rapier

ˈreɪpɪə/

noun

1. a thin, light sharp-pointed sword used for thrusting.

   • (especially of speech or intelligence) quick and incisive.

     modifier noun: rapier

     "rapier wit"

Word of the Day:
lexiphanes
(lex-SIF-uh-neez)

noun
One who uses words pretentiously.

Etymology
From Greek lexiphanes (phrase monger), from lexis (word or phrase) + -phaneia (to show).]

Usage
"The danger is in becoming so seduced by the lexiconic that we become lexiphanes. There's no excuse for indulging in the bombastic at any time, of course." — Murray Waldren; That's Language; The Australian (Sydney); Jul 16, 2005. (© Wordsmith.org)

Elon Musk’s promises at Tesla’s robotaxi launch were long on bombast and short on reality. The road will be lengthy, and the carmaker will have tough competition along the way https://econ.trib.al/901Jdl9

Photo: Courtesy of Tesla

Shown is an épée fencer, with the valid target area (the entire body) in red.

The épée (pronounced /ˈɛpeɪ/) is the modern derivative of the duelling sword, the smallsword (itself descended from the rapier, used in sport fencing. Épée is French for "sword".