The definition of maladroit from www.dictionary.com<\/a> is \u201clacking in adroitness,\u201d a definition which appears somewhat circular, but then it is followed up with several synonyms: \u201cunskillful; awkward; bungling; tactless.\u201d The OED<\/em> tells us that it is a direct borrowing from French (Middle French, in particular), appearing in 1642. The French word contains the prefix mal<\/em>-, so perhaps we should look up the word adroit<\/em> to see how the prefix makes it negative.<\/p>\n Adroit<\/em> is also a straight borrowing from French, though in this case it comes from Old French. Adroit consists of the prefix a-, meaning to or at, and the word droit, probably with a sense of straight or correct. It means \u201cphysically or mentally skillful or resourceful; dexterous, clever, astute,\u201d according to the OED<\/em>. The first quote supplied by the OED<\/em> is from J. Evelyn\u2019s State of France<\/em>, which says, \u201cThe best esteemed, and most adroict Cavalry of Europe,\u201d making it clear that its first meaning was physically skillful though mentally skillful is probably the more regular usage in Contemporary English. For instance, Walter Scott, in Quentin Durward<\/em>, writes, \u201cThe adroit manner in which he apologized for the indecorums committed by their attendant,\u201d suggesting something other than physical skill.<\/p>\n Droit <\/em>is also interesting. It means \u201ca right or a legal claim, or money that is due to one by such a legal right\u201d or it can mean \u201claw, right, justice,\u201d though that meaning is labeled \u201cObs<\/em>.\u201d (obsolete) by the OED<\/em> editors. Droit<\/em> can also be found in compounds like \u201cdroit-house\u201d (a place where the collection of droits occurs) or \u201cdroitsman,\u201d like a debt-collector. But perhaps the most interesting use of droit<\/em> is in the French-sounding phrase droit(s) du<\/em> (or de) seigneur<\/em> (the last word being a French word for a feudal lord), pronounced \/drwa dy s\u025b\u0272\u0153r\/, although droit<\/em> has been Anglicized to the pronunciation \/dr\u0254\u026at\/. This \u201clegal right\u201d is \u201can alleged custom of medi\u00e6val times by which the feudal lord might have sexual intercourse with the bride of a vassal on the wedding-night, before she cohabited with her husband.\u201d That medi\u00e6val lords ever practiced such a right is highly doubtful, at least not legally. Droit<\/em> comes from the Latin d\u012br\u0113ctum<\/em>, meaning straight or right.<\/p>\n So we go from a meaning of “straight” all the way, through a couple of prefixes, to a meaning of “physically or mentally or vocally clumsy.”<\/p>\n On this date in 1885, at the Savoy Theatre in London, Gilbert and Sullivan\u2019s The Mikado<\/em> opened. It ran for 672 performances, the second longest run for any musical up to that time. It remains one of the most popular works of musical theater in history.<\/p>\n Sir William Schwenck Gilber (1836-1911) was an English writer of dramas, poetry, and librettos (texts of operas or musicals). He was also a theater director who developed a realistic approach to theater, an approach that was key to the success of realistic drama in the late 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> century. But he is best known for light verse and drama, especially the fourteen Savoy operas.<\/p>\n Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900) was an English composer responsible for 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ballets, oratorios (like operas, but they don\u2019t act), songs, hymns, and other music. He, too, is best known for the 14 Savoy operas.<\/p>\n Richard D\u2019Oyly Carte (1844-1901) was a talent agent and producer (in the day he would have been called an impresario,<\/em> from the Italian word for an enterprise), and hotelier. In addition to his fame as the producer of Gilbert and Sullivan, he built hotels, like the Savoy in London, theaters like the Savoy and the Palace, both in London.<\/p>\n The form of comic opera, or opera buffa<\/em>, was begun in the 17th<\/sup> century in Italy, and it flourished and spread throughout Europe in the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> centuries. In the mid-19th<\/sup> century, the French composer and impresario Louis Auguste Florimond Ronger, known as Herv\u00e9, and Jacques Offenbach, achieved great popularity with their operettas, a genre pretty much invented by Herv\u00e9. But, as one would expect from the French, the form of the operetta became more and more risqu\u00e9, at least by English standards. D\u2019Oyly Carte, looking for wholesome, English entertainment, brought Gilbert and Sullivan together to write such operettas for the English stage.<\/p>\n After numerous successes, such as The Mikado<\/em>, The Pirates of Penzance<\/em>, and HMS Pinafore<\/em>, Gilbert had a falling out with Sullivan and D\u2019Oyly Carte (over money, of course), and while the partnership came together for two last works, those two were not the success that the earlier works had been. Who knows how much more great work they could have achieved had they not fallen out.<\/p>\n Then again, artists have always been considered maladroit when it comes to money and relationships.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The image is a picture of a lithograph by John Stetson, done in 1885. It \u201cdepicts Kate Forster (left), Geraldine Ulmar (center), and Geraldine St. Maur (right) as the three little maids, respectively Pitti-Sing, Yum-Yum, and Peep-Bo.\u201d If you have never seen The Mikado<\/em>, look for it. It satirizes Victorian England. In fact, G&S set the operetta in Japan so that they can get away with a lot of the satire. There are several versions on YouTube (e.g. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=c_DlC4n9CFQ<\/a>), but of course it is better when seen live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul Schleifer The definition of maladroit from www.dictionary.com is \u201clacking in adroitness,\u201d a definition which appears somewhat circular, but then it is followed up with several synonyms: \u201cunskillful; awkward; bungling; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2415,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions\/2415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}