Comments on: Defenestration

By: Jon Richfield

Jon Richfield — Sun, 01 May 2011 10:23:06 +0000

I don’t have a favourite word; every time I specially like one, another comes along and confuses the issue. If you like “defenestration, visit the site: http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=11638&highlight=lister&page=2

There you will find a short poem called “Defenestration” by one of the most entertaining, haunting, witty, and unjustly neglected poets in the English language: Richard Percival (R.P.) Lister. A few of his works appear there, but it is hard to find more. Let me know if you succeed.

“I concluded (said McIndoe) that the incidence of logodaedaly was purely adventitious.” is from “Defenestration”.

How do you like:
Genius is a common factor found
In many widely different kinds of man,
As, for example, Plato, Petrarch, Pound,
Cervantes, Caesar, Socrates, Cezanne,

Marlborough, Milton, Mendelssohn, Mozart,
Puccini, Pushkin, Proust, Picasso, Poe,
Beethoven, Botticelli, Bonaparte,
Mohammed, Mendel, Michelangelo,

El Greco, Gorki, Gaugin, Goethe, Grock,
Defoe, Debussy, Darwin, Dante, Drake,
Canova, Casanova, Caradoc,
Bach, Belisarius, Bunyan, Buddha, Blake,

Tolstoy, Tertullian, Turner, Trumper, Tree,
Machiavelli, Moliere, and me.

By: Rusty

Rusty — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:21:21 +0000

I believe there’s a school of thought which holds that defenestration does not merely mean to throw something out of a window, or even to throw someone out of a window, but that it specifically means to kill someone by throwing them out of a window, as famously occurred in Bohemia during the civil disturbances of the 15th and 17th centuries. If you don’t believe me, czech for yourself.

By: Johnny Jinky

Johnny Jinky — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:04:20 +0000

I always liked the word ‘parcel’…just has a nicer phonemic ring to it than ‘package’ or ‘box’ in my opinion. Plus it has nice associations…most likely contains something benign somebody just bought from a local shop…cookies, pastry, some item of clothing or accessory. (Barton Fink notwithstanding.) Finally it brings a picturesque image to mind. Why? Because it’s wrapped up in string, that’s why.

By: Andrew Echevarria

Andrew Echevarria — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:05:49 +0000

It’s correct, though it’s probably better if you left out the apostrophe in “TV’s”; thus–just “TVs.”

By: hermann

hermann — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:31:21 +0000

would the sentence “Hermann dreams of becoming a rock artist on tour since he enjoys defenstrating hotel TV’s.” be correct, gramaticly speaking?

By: Donna Lane

Donna Lane — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:09:39 +0000

My son is a fenestrationist by trade. He examines windows to make sure they are built to spec. Imagine being asked what you do for a living??? “I’m a fenestrationist”. That’s a conversation stopper!

By: Ciro

Ciro — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:05:22 +0000

Well, Helldunkel, you almost got it. Fenetre is French, fenestra is Spanish and Italin, fenster is German, fresta is Ancient Portuguese, and it all comes from the same Latin root, which is “fenestra.”

Amazingness, as you wanted to know about its formation, DE is a prefix indicating removal (in the case), FENESTRA is the root for window, and TION is the suffix for an action (again, in the case). I hope I made myself clear on this one.

And yes, Terry was right, it is a noun. The verb is “defenestrate.”

By: Helldunkel

Helldunkel — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:23:43 +0000

Actually, Alex, in the RAE dictionary (Diccionario de la Real Academia Española) Fenestra is featured with the meaning “window”. It does exist in Spanish as well. Anyway, I have to acknowledge that such a word was unknown to me until now, and I am a native Spanish speaker. As for the word “defenestration” it is truly a great word.

Greetings from Colombia.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:16:19 +0000

Please allow me to correct your translation, Terry.
Fenestra means nothing in Spanish, mainly because it is Latin.
Thanks for the word Matt. It’s really a great one!

By: James

James — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:05:30 +0000

There is a dark side to this word. It also means, as I described in a poem once, “the art, habit, or practice of jumping out of windows.” The thrust of the poem was that a suicide by defenestration could be prevented by getting into a dialogue with the unhappy person about which foot should go over the windowsill first, and why. Naturally, the people in the poetry seminar who had had suicides among friends raised the devil with me for being so light-hearted about such a serious subject. I have been careful since, but I still like the word.

By: ellenk

ellenk — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:47:12 +0000

I love this word. I use it whenever it is appropriate, and sometimes when not! It really confuses people.

By: Amazingness

Amazingness — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:52:14 +0000

Well, I could see how that would work. deFENEstration could kind of be like the french word for window which is FENEtre. And then DE, could be used like, to remove. Hmmm….