Tuesday, July 16, 2013

"Juxtaposition"


       I have received the new calendar for the Nature Conservancy with fine photos by members along with a few words about each image by the photographers.

       This is great, but once in awhile there's a little deficiency in the language:

          "I like the juxtaposition between the delightful harmless    
           butterflies and the sinister expression of the caiman..."

click on picture to enlarge
Taken in Peru, wonderful photo, amazingly captured by R. Grant Maslowski (mine is a retake of part of his shot to show what his sentence is referring to).

       It's probably to be forgiven, but if you know the Latin root of "juxtaposition," "placed next to," the word "between" isn't quite right.  "Of" would have been a better choice.  The "betweenness" is already implied in juxtaposition itself.

1 comment:

  1. often times don, you remind me of "Gus" from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". He would go on about educating "non greeks" by searching for the root word, and how is came from the Greeks.

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