Happy Wednesday, word nerds! You may be tempted to think today’s word has been inspired by the onset of coughs and colds as we move into winter here in Australia, but it actually has more to do with the sudden love my children have developed for the Disney animation of Beauty and the Beast. And ten points to you if you know what the connection is between Beauty and the Beast and the word expectorating!
Here is a positively delicious adjective if you can find the right moment to use it: evanescent (adj) – soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing. I first came across this word in a poem by Australian poet A.B. (Banjo) Paterson, Sunrise on the Coast (it’s in the last stanza, but I thought you might like to read the whole thing since it’s only four stanzas long): Grey dawn on the sandhills – the night wind has drifted All night from the rollers a scent of the sea; With the dawn the grey fog his