WORD: "Dryasdust" - Nifty history.

[hazelnut_cafe]

dryasdust (DRY-az-dust) adjective

Extremely dull, dry, or boring.

[After Jonas Dryasdust, a fictitious person to whom Sir Walter Scott
(1771-1832) dedicated some of his novels.]

At the beginning of the novel Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott writes:

DEDICATORY EPISTLE
TO
THE REV. DR DRYASDUST, F.A.S.

Dr. Dryasdust however was the writer's own creation. He pretends to dedicate
the novel to him for supplying him with dry historical details. Since then
the term is used to describe a person devoted to dry, uninteresting details.
Dryasdust -- dry as dust --- is obviously a charactonym.

-Anu Garg (gargATwordsmith.org)

"The report is written in the [Congressional Budget Office]'s dryasdust
style, but for anyone with a tolerance for numbers and an interest in
policy, it is as scary as a Stephen King novel."
N. Gregory Mankiw; Government Debt: A Horror Story; Fortune (New York);
Aug 3, 1998.

Comments

[espresso-mafia.livejournal.com]

Note to self: I really, really want to have a picnic sometime. I think it would be cute.
Pot-luck picnic. Park near my house. Love.