clipped, lapidary, wayward, standing in the world.

America's standing in the world.

Happy birthday to Bruce Chatwin, born on this day in 1940! We can thank him for revolutionizing the genre of travel writing, and giving us glimpses of “the uttermost part of the earth.” https://bit.ly/3fICALB

John Updike described Chatwin's writing as "a clipped, lapidary prose that compresses worlds into pages",^[146] while one of Chatwin's editors, Susannah Clapp, wrote, "Although his syntax was pared down, his words were not — or at least not only — plain.... His prose is both spare and flamboyant."

A Rewoven Black Flag, Raised for a New Audience 
By JON PARELES
The year’s oddest musical tribute belongs to Dirty Projectors, the Brooklyn band that brought its lapidary, wayward constructions to the Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday night.

“Unaccustomed Earth” with an intimate knowledge of their conflicted hearts, using her lapidary eye for detail to conjure their daily lives with extraordinary precision: the faint taste of coconut in the Nice cookies that a man associates with his dead wife; the Wonder Bread sandwiches, tinted green with curry, that a Bengali mother makes for her embarrassed daughter to take to school. A Chekhovian sense of loss blows through these new stories: a reminder of Ms. Lahiri’s appreciation of the wages of time and mortality and her understanding too of the missed connections that plague her husbands and wives, parents and children, lovers and friends.

clipped

adjective

UK 

 /klɪpt/ US 

 /klɪpt/

clipped adjective (SPEAKING)

with words pronounced quickly and clearly, sometimes with parts missing, or in a very short and unfriendly way:

I heard the clipped tones of his secretary saying "I have Mr Watson for you."

lapidary
n., pl. -ies.

1. One who cuts, polishes, or engraves gems.
2. A dealer in precious or semiprecious stones.

adj.

1. Of or relating to precious stones or the art of working with them.
2. 1. Engraved in stone.
   2. Marked by conciseness, precision, or refinement of expression: lapidary prose.
   3. Sharply or finely delineated: a face with lapidary features.

[Middle English lapidarie, from Old French lapidaire, from Latin lapidārius, from lapis, lapid-, stone.]

n. 宝石細工人［術］.
━━ a. 石に彫られた ((碑文など)); 碑文（体）の; 宝石細工の.

wayward

(wā'wərd) adj.

1. Given to or marked by willful, often perverse deviation from what is desired, expected, or required in order to gratify one's own impulses or inclinations. See synonyms at unruly.
2. Swayed or prompted by caprice; unpredictable.

[Middle English, short for awaiward, turned away, perverse : awai, away; see away + -ward, -ward.]

━━ a. わがままな; 片意地な; 気まぐれな; 不安定な.