Thursday, August 23, 2012

Saliency

Meaning: Salient, or obvious - originally meant leaping, and then sticking out, and is, I think, slowly evolving from obvious into meaningful.  Invented by Sir Thomas Urquhart's contemporary, Sir Thomas Browne, whose words, while not nearly as stylish as Sir Urquhart's, seem to be more generally used.

Usefulness: 3

Logofascination: 3 (but only because it's etymologically leaping)

In the wild: Grattan Institute discussion on behavioural economics and public policy.

Degrees: 3

Connections: Saliency - salient - leap

Which is used in: G&P First Book, VI: How Gargantua was born in a strange manner. The midwives think Gargantua has been stillborn and administer something which so restricts Gargamelle's insides that Gargantua must take another route: "By this inconvenient the cotyledons of her matrix were presently loosed, through which the child sprang up and leaped, and so, entering into the hollow vein, did climb by the diaphragm even above her shoulders, where the vein divides itself into two, and from thence taking his way towards the left side, issued forth at her left ear."

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