{"id":7191,"date":"2025-08-29T01:39:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T01:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7191"},"modified":"2025-08-29T02:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T02:53:44","slug":"word-of-the-day-encomium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/08\/29\/word-of-the-day-encomium\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Encomium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to the Word Guru daily email, is encomium<\/em>. It means \u201ca formal expression of high praise\u201d and is pronounced \/ \u025bn\u02c8ko\u028a mi \u0259m \/ (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/encomium<\/a>). Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, gave three synonyms: \u201cPanegyrick; praise; elogy\u201d and then provides an example in a quote from Alexander Pope: \u201cA vile encomium doubly ridicules; \/ There\u2019s nothing blackens like the ink of fools\u201d (https:\/\/johnsonsdictionaryonline.com\/views\/search.php?term=encomium<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merriam-Webster says, \u201cKudos<\/a> to encomium<\/em> for being a marvelous, magnificent, must-have word for high praise for over four centuries\u2014at least in formal speech and writing. Indeed, like its synonym panegyric<\/em><\/a>, encomium<\/em> (from the Greek word enk\u014dmion<\/em>, meaning \u2018celebration\u2019) has seen a steady drop in usage since the early 1800s and is rarely encountered outside of literary or highfalutin<\/a> contexts. It does pop up in pop culture now and again, however. Music fans of a certain generation may remember a host of their favorite artists, from Tori Amos to Stone Temple Pilots, paying tribute to Led Zeppelin in 1995 on the appropriately titled album Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin<\/em>. And more recently, the famously loquacious<\/a> television series Gilmore Girls<\/em> dropped encomium<\/em> no less than five times in a 2016 episode featuring \u201cStars Hollow: The Musical,\u201d a show-within-a-show featuring the line \u201cNot so fast with the encomiums!\u201d Of course, you may dish out your own encomiums in any manner or velocity you wish\u2014and verily we shall tip our chapeaux<\/a>\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/encomium<\/a>). That goes along with M-W\u2019s definition, \u201cglowing and warmly enthusiastic praise\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word appears in English in the \u201c1580s, from Late Latin encomium<\/em>, from Greek enk\u014dmion (epos)<\/em> \u2018laudatory (ode) to a conqueror or eulogy or panegyric on a living person,\u2019 neuter of enk\u014dmios<\/em> \u2018belonging to the praise or reward of a conqueror; proper to the Bacchic revel, in which the victor was led home in procession with music, dancing, and merriment,\u2019 from en<\/em> \u2018in\u2019 (see en-<\/strong><\/a> (2)) + komos<\/em> \u2018banquet, procession, merrymaking\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=encomium<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1964, \u201cWalt Disney’s musical film “Mary Poppins,” directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, with songs by Richard and Robert Sherman, premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California, and wins five Academy Awards\u201d (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/august\/27<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helen Lyndon Goff (1899-1996) was born in Queensland, Australia. She started writing as a teen, even getting published, and became an actress. At 24, she moved from Australia to the UK where she adopted the name Pamela Lyndon Travers (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/P._L._Travers<\/a>). When she published her first short story about Mary Poppins, called \u201cMary Poppins and the Match Man,\u201d she adopted P. L. Travers as a nom de plume<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile appearing as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s radio programme Desert Island Discs<\/em> in May 1977, Travers revealed that the name “M. Poppins” originated from childhood stories that she contrived for her sisters, and that she was still in possession of a book from that era with this name inscribed within. Travers’s great-aunt, Helen Morehead, who lived in Woollahra, Sydney, and used to say “Spit spot, into bed,” is a likely inspiration for the character\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travers wrote eight Mary Poppins novels between 1934 and 1988. \u201cThe books centre on the magical English nanny Mary Poppins, who is blown by the East wind to Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London, and into the Bankses’ household to care for their children. Encounters with pavement-painters and shopkeepers, and various adventures ensue, until Mary Poppins abruptly leaves, i.e., \u2018pops out\u2019. Only the first three of the eight books feature Mary Poppins arriving and leaving. The later five books recount previously unrecorded adventures from her original three visits. As Travers explains in her introduction to Mary Poppins in the Park, \u2018She cannot forever arrive and depart\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mary_Poppins_(book_series)<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmong the fans of the Mary Poppins novels were the two young daughters of Walt Disney. Beginning in the 1940s, Disney made efforts to purchase the film rights to Mary Poppins, which included visits to Travers at her home in London. In 1961, Travers arrived in Los Angeles on a flight from London, her first-class ticket having been paid for by Disney, and finally agreed to sell the rights, in no small part because she was financially in dire straits. Travers was an adviser in the production, but she disapproved of the softened Poppins character in its Disney version. She felt ambivalent about turning the story into a musical, and she so hated the use of animation that she ruled out any further adaptations of the series. Walt Disney Pictures released Mary Poppins in 1964. Travers received no invitation to the film’s star-studded Hollywood premiere until she \u2018embarrassed a Disney executive into extending one\u2019. At the after-party, she said loudly, \u2018Well. The first thing that has to go is the animation sequence.\u2019 Disney replied, \u2018Pamela, that ship has sailed\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/P._L._Travers<\/a>). She said later that she had learned to live with the movie, that it was glamorous, but that it wasn\u2019t all that close to her novels. Still, the movie made her rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, she was the author of a story that became a legendary film. \u201cTravers was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1977 New Year Honours. The investiture ceremony took place later that year at Buckingham Palace, with the Duke of Kent standing in for Queen Elizabeth II\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/P._L._Travers<\/a>). I\u2019ve never been given an OBE, but I would imagine it comes with an encomium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is from Mary Poppins, starring Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews (https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/mary-poppins-fun-facts-2018-9<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to the Word Guru daily email, is encomium. It means \u201ca formal expression of high praise\u201d and is pronounced \/ \u025bn\u02c8ko\u028a mi \u0259m \/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,910,395,284,911],"class_list":["post-7191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-encomium","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","tag-mary-poppins","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191","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=7191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7193,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191\/revisions\/7193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}