Surprising and dramatic, downhill, uphill, poetry, poem, poetic, presumptive dropout,

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Surprising and dramatic are two words that describe President Trump’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night. From the president awarding popular conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up her copy of the speech, here are six of the highlights.

“It’s a long way,” John said slowly, “ain’t it? It’s a hard way. It’s uphill all the way.”
―from GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin

NEW HAVEN – After performing at the Yale Symphony Orchestra’s annual Halloween Show, violinist Katherine Chu ’16 reported being acutely aware that everything after will be a steady series of disappointments.

“Two thousand people watched me peak on that stage,” Chu said, adding that no future accomplishment will ever match the thrill of playing Woolsey Hall packed with costumed friends. “I have no clue who’d want to go to another concert after that one. Like, wow, why would anyone put up with the boring shit when they can watch a movie, drunk, dressed as slutty Lincoln Chafee?”

Chu, a musical virtuoso with aspirations to play professionally, added that the thought of playing to empty concert halls has made her consider giving up and coking out on Wall Street.

“Our musicians will go on to play in Berlin, Tokyo, Chicago, Vienna. But this is the best they’ll ever do,” said Symphony Orchestra Conductor Toshiyuki Shimada. “We organize the concert to give these musicians a chance to feel like celebrities for just a second of their wretched, wretched lives.”

“We’d like to thank the entire Yale community for coming together and pretending to like classical music for the night,” echoed bassoonist Adrian Donati ’18. “It really keeps us going.”

–G. Ambrose

The American International Group's sale of a minority stake in its Asian life insurance unit is apparently facing an uphill climb in a down market.

today's papers

Her Fight Will Go On

By Daniel Politi
Posted Thursday, May 8, 2008, at 6:30 AM ET
The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox all lead with the fallout from Tuesday's primaries. Sen. Hillary Clinton was already facing an uphill battle but she awoke yesterday to a decidedly changed mood and a growing feeling that her quest for the nomination is simply a lost cause. Many are already referring to Sen. Barack Obama as the presumptive nominee. "Suddenly, a primary day that few expected to be decisive in the Democrats' long and close contest was interpreted on all sides as a game-changer," notes the WSJ. But Clinton vowed to stay in the race and, in order to quell any doubts about her determination, she campaigned in West Virginia, where she assured reporters that she'll keep going "until there is a nominee." Her advisers also publicly dismissed the idea that there had been any discussions about dropping out.

presumptive

(prĭ-zŭmp'tĭv) adj. ━━ a. 【法】推定の［に基づく］; 推定の根拠となる.

1. Providing a reasonable basis for belief or acceptance.
2. Founded on probability or presumption.

presumptively pre·sump'tive·ly adv.

drop out phrasal verb
1 to not do something that you were going to do, or to stop doing something before you have completely finished:
He dropped out of the race after two laps.

2 If a student drops out, they stop going to classes before they have finished their course.

dropout 
noun [C]
a person who leaves school, college or university before finishing a course, or a person who lives in an unusual way:
a high school/college dropout
He was a loner and a dropout.

uphill 
adjective, adverb
1 leading to a higher place on a slope:
an uphill climb
running uphill
Compare downhill.

2 needing a large amount of effort:
It'll be an uphill struggle/battle/fight to get the new proposals accepted.
Compare downhill.

dramatic

See definition in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

Line breaks: dra|mat¦ic /drəˈmatɪk/

Definition of dramatic in English:

adjective

1[ATTRIBUTIVE] Relating to drama or the performance or study of drama:the dramatic artsa dramatic society

2(Of an event or circumstance) sudden and striking:a dramatic increase in recorded crime

2.1Exciting or impressive:he recalled his dramatic escape from the buildingdramatic mountain peaks

2.2(Of a person or their behaviour) intending or intended to create an effect; theatrical:with a dramatic gesture, she put a hand to her brow

Origin

Late 16th century: via late Latin from Greek dramatikos, from drama, dramat- (see drama).

poetry

[名][U].

1 （文学形式としての）詩, 作詩（法）, 詩作（⇔prose）.

2 ((集合的))（作品としての）詩, 詩歌, 韻文. ▼一編の詩はa poem, a piece of poetry

Wordsworth's poetry
ワーズワースの詩（集）

modern poetry
近代詩.

3 詩的特質, 詩趣；詩的感興, 詩情, 詩心

oratory full of poetry
詩情をふんだんにもった修辞.

4 華麗, 優美

the poetry of dancing movement
踊る動きの優美さ.

poetry

Syllabification: (po·et·ry)

Pronunciation: /ˈpōətrē, ˈpōitrē/

Translate poetry | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
noun

• literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature:he is chiefly famous for his love poetry
• a quality of beauty and intensity of emotion regarded as characteristic of poems:poetry and fire are nicely balanced in the music
• something regarded as comparable to poetry in its beauty:the music department is housed in a building that is pure poetry

Origin:

late Middle English: from medieval Latin poetria, from Latin poeta 'poet'. In early use the word sometimes referred to creative literature in general

poem
名]

1 （1編の）詩, 韻文, 美文, 詩的な文章

an epic ［a lyric］ poem
叙事［叙情］詩

a dramatic poem
劇詩

make ［compose］ a poem
詩作する.

2 詩趣に富むもの, 詩のようなすばらしいもの.

［ラテン語←ギリシャ語póēma （poieîn作る＋-eme＝作られたもの）］
noun

• a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanzaic structure.
• something that arouses strong emotions because of its beauty:you make a poem of riding downhill on your bike

Origin:

late 15th century: from French poème or Latin poema, from Greek poēma, early variant of poiēma 'fiction, poem', from poiein 'create'

poetic

Syllabification: (po·et·ic)

Pronunciation: /pōˈetik/

Translate poetic | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
adjective

• of, relating to, or used in poetry:the muse is a poetic convention
• written in verse rather than prose:a poetic drama
• having an imaginative or sensitively emotional style of expression:the orchestral playing was colorful and poetic

Derivatives

poetical

Pronunciation: /pōˈetikəl/

adjective

poetically

Pronunciation: /-ik(ə)lē/

adverb

Origin:

mid 16th century: from French poétique, from Latin poeticus 'poetic, relating to poets', from Greek po(i)ētikos, from po(i)ētēs (see poet)