word of the day: grot
Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have come to Antarctica on a mission. They are being helped by a troop of penguins who think aiding prisoners sounds delightful. Shortly after getting the mice through a spot of trouble, the enthusiastic penguins invite their new friends to a penguin ball.
Adelie penguins lead very full social lives. Their engagement books, if they’d had engagement books, would have been as stuffed as [an] Ambassador’s. … [W]ithout waiting for formal acceptance of their kind invitation, they at once carried Bernard and Miss Bianca along with them to their Palais de Danse in an icicle-chandeliered grot.
definition (the free dictionary): a grotto
Although Margery Sharp seems to be using “grot” in a neutral fashion, “grot,” according to the dictionaries, also has connotations of dirt and rubbish, i.e., “grotty.” However, Sharp most likely had in mind a poetic turn, as it seems “grot” is used the way “o’er” is, to cut off a syllable that hinders the meter.
source:
Miss Bianca in the Antarctic
by Margery Sharp
illustrated by Erik Blegveld
1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA
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