Words – a new link in my brain!
I have commented before that I like words… and I enjoy the process of thinking which links words to other words and ideas. So this short post is about that process having just taken place in my head! Bear in mind that the word I am about to talk about is one I have used many times before and the concept it links to is not a new one to me either. It is just that I have not made the connection before and for those of you who have, and wonder why I have not, – the answer is “I do not know!” Or, it may be, that you have not made the link before either!? I would be interested to know, if you have the inclination to respond!
OK – so what is the word. The word is ‘Masterpiece’ and is normally pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable ‘mast….’ And so I have never before thought of it as two words which is how now assume it to have arisen – thus ‘master piece’.
Wikipedia says ‘masterpiece’ … “in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise” which is how I have always thought of the word. But I was looking up some information about a painter called Michel Sittow who painted three painting using a model thought to be Catherine of Aragon as a young girl. Anyway, it turns out that, although he was accepted as a “Master” painter in Spain, when he went back to Reval (which is now known as Tallin and is the capital city of Estonia) and joined the Kanut guild of painters, they only ‘let him in’ as journeyman painter and he had to complete a new painting to prove he actually was a master painter – and this was, you guessed it, his ‘master piece’.
I just thought I would share that with you.
Keith Melton - Green Lib Dem 