{"id":7411,"date":"2026-10-06T22:30:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T22:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7411"},"modified":"2026-10-06T22:31:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T22:31:53","slug":"word-of-the-day-persiflage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2026\/10\/06\/word-of-the-day-persiflage\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Persiflage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>) is persiflage<\/em>. Pronounced \/ \u02c8p\u025cr s\u0259\u02ccfl\u0251\u0292 \/, with a secondary stress on the third syllable, this noun means \u201clight, bantering talk or writing\u201d or \u201ca frivolous or flippant style of treating a subject\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/persiflage<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word appears in English in \u201c1757, from French persiflage<\/em>, from persifler<\/em> \u2018to banter\u2019 (18c.), from Latin per<\/em> \u2018through\u2019 (from PIE root *per-<\/strong><\/a> (1) \u2018forward,\u2019 hence \u2018through\u2019) + French siffler<\/em> \u2018to whistle, hiss,\u2019 from collateral form of Latin sibilare<\/em> \u2018to hiss,\u2019 which possibly is of imitative origin. Said to have been introduced in English by Chesterfield\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=persiflage<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its Did You Know? section, Merriam-Webster says, \u201cUnwanted persiflage on television might provoke an impatient audience to hiss or boo, but from an etymological standpoint, no other reaction could be more appropriate. English speakers picked up persiflage<\/em> from French in the 18th century. Its ancestor is the French verb persifler<\/em>, which means \u2018to banter\u2019 and was formed from the prefix per-<\/em>, meaning \u2018thoroughly,\u2019 plus siffler<\/em>, meaning \u2018to whistle, hiss, or boo.\u2019 Siffler<\/em> in turn derived from the Latin verb sibilare<\/em>, meaning \u2018to whistle or hiss.\u2019 By the way, sibilare<\/em> is also the source of sibilant<\/em>, a word linguists use to describe sounds like those made by \u2018s\u2019 and \u2018sh\u2019 in sash<\/em>. That Latin root also underlies the verb sibilate<\/em>, meaning \u2018to hiss\u2019 or \u2018to pronounce with or utter an initial sibilant\u2019 (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/persiflage<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1952, according to On This Day, \u201cAgatha Christie’s play \u2018The Mousetrap\u2019 opens in London\u201d (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/october\/6<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agatha Christie, the queen of the murder mystery, wrote \u201cThree Blind Mice\u201d as a radio play. She also wrote a short story based upon the play, but she dictated that the story not be published until the play had finished its run. She wrote it \u201cas a birthday present for Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. It was broadcast on 30 May 1947\u2026. The story drew from the real-life case of Dennis O’Neill, who died after he and his brother Terence suffered extreme abuse while in the foster care of a Shropshire farmer and his wife in 1945\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Mousetrap<\/a>). And while the short story has still not been published in the UK, it was published in the USA in a collection of short stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plot? \u201cA shocking murder. Seven strangers snowed in at a remote country guesthouse. A police sergeant arrives with a warning no one expects.
\u201cCut off from the outside world, suspicion falls on everyone as secrets unravel and tensions rise. Every whisper hides a clue. Every story masks a lie. And as fear tightens its grip, one question lingers in the air: Who among them is capable of murder?\u201d (https:\/\/themousetrap.com\/about\/#next<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Mousetrap<\/em> had its world premiere on 6th October 1952 at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham. It subsequently visited the New Theatre, Oxford; The Opera House, Manchester; The Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool; The Theatre Royal, Newcastle; The Grand Theatre, Leeds; and the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, before opening in London at the Ambassadors Theatre on Tuesday 25th November.
In the cast were Richard Attenborough, Sheila Sim, Martin Miller, Jessica Spencer, Aubrey Dexter, Mignon O\u2019Doherty, Allan McClelland and John Paul\u201d (https:\/\/themousetrap.com\/about\/#prev<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that opening, the show has run continuously. It played at the Ambassadors until March of 1974, when it closed at the Ambassadors on Saturday but opened at St. Martin\u2019s Theater, which is larger and was designed by the same designer as the Ambassadors. It even staged a performance on the night of the death of Christie: \u201cBrian McDermott, playing Detective Sergeant Trotter, spoke at the end of the performance to the packed house: \u2018Ladies and gentlemen, this afternoon the best-known, best-loved English writer in the world, Dame Agatha Christie died and a few hours ago it seemed that The Mousetrap would close for the first time in its history. Those of us who knew her saw a quiet, shy, sensitive lady, but she also had great courage and determination and we knew she would have wanted the show to go on. As a mark of respect to a great English lady, will you please rise and join in a moment of silence\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/themousetrap.com\/about\/#next<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have never seen The Mousetrap<\/em>, but when I was in college, I was in a production of Tom Stoppard\u2019s \u201cThe Real Inspector Hound.\u201d \u201cThe plot follows two theatre critics named Moon and Birdboot who are watching a ludicrous country house murder mystery, in the style of a whodunit. By chance, they become involved in the action causing a series of events that parallel the play they are watching.
\u201cThe play was written between 1961 and 1962, drawing on Stoppard’s experiences as a Bristol theatre critic. It was initially named \u201cThe Stand-ins\u201d and later, \u201cThe Critics.\u201d It is a parody of the stereotypical parlour mystery in the style of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap<\/em>, as well as of the critics watching the play, with their personal desires and obsessions interwoven into their bombastic and pompous reviews\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Real_Inspector_Hound<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While you almost assuredly know Agatha Christie, at least from the movies made of a few of her novels, like Murder on the Orient Express<\/em>, you may not be familiar with Tom Stoppard. I was introduced to Stoppard my freshman year of college. The theater department professor directing the winter show asked me if I would be auditioning (I had auditioned in the fall but hadn\u2019t been cast). I said that I hadn\u2019t thought about it. He suggested that I go read the play, which was on 2-hour reserve in the library, and if I liked it, maybe I could audition. The play was Stoppard\u2019s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead<\/em>. I literally laughed out loud while sitting in the library reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christie was a wonderful writer, a true original. Stoppard is also a wonderful writer, and while both \u201cThe Real Inspector Hound\u201d and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead<\/em> are, in one or another, a parody of someone else\u2019s work, his persiflage makes them highly entertaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is of St. Martin\u2019s Theater, in Covent Garden, in London. It was taken by Ewan Munro. \u201cThis image, which was originally posted to Flickr, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 23 April 2010, 13:24 by Snowmanradio. On that date, it was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the license indicated\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/St_Martin%27s_Theatre#\/media\/File:St_Martin’s_Theatre,_Covent_Garden,_London-2April2010.jpg<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary) is persiflage. Pronounced \/ \u02c8p\u025cr s\u0259\u02ccfl\u0251\u0292 \/, with a secondary stress on the third syllable, this noun means \u201clight, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[930,238,395,284,1014],"class_list":["post-7411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-agatha-christie","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","tag-persiflage","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411","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=7411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7413,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions\/7413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}