Lexigame Community
General Category => Words => Topic started by: pat on February 09, 2020, 11:04:22 PM
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Common. Really?
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I missed it too. Don't think I've ever seen the word before.
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inamorata is common, but the masculine form inamorato is rare.
Female lovers are common, but male lovers are rare? Seems inconsistent to say the least.
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But isn't inamorata Italian? Is it that common in English?
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Exactly - allow Inamorata and allow Cherie or cheri
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I don't think there's any argument that inamorata is not a common word in English, so it will be treated as rare in future.
But, in the word's defence, I note that it's been used by English writers over many years. For example, in The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope:
I found Fritz's inamorata, the Countess Helga, gathering blooms in the garden for her mistress's wear, and prevailed on her to take mine in their place.
The word was also used by Melville, Charlotte Bronte, Trollope, Scott, etc.
And it is occasionally used in more recent writing, though I admit a lot of the search hits I get are for a clothing label of that name. As an example of its non-fashion use, the Vancouver Observer in a review last year of a performance of Gounod's Faust:
Vancouver's own Simone Osborne brings a supple soprano to the role of Marguerite as she morphs from dream icon to chaste ingénue to fluttery inamorata to pariah "fallen woman" to guilt-wracked penitent to murderess to half-mad convict to her deathbed absolution.
And in NME:
He [Harvey Keitel] was staying in Robert De Niro’s loft upstairs and the noise was interrupting his romantic dinner with his inamorata.
So, I maintain that the word has been incorporated into the English tongue, even though it's by no means a commonly used word.
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Older fogies like me, including all admirers of the immortal Joyce Grenfell, will also remember the singing duet (Michael) Flanders and (Donald) Swann.
Among their best known opuses was the wonderful Hippopotamus Song
A bold hippopotamus was standing one day
On the banks of the cool Shalimar
He gazed at the bottom as he peacefully lay
By the light of the evening star
Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair
His fair hippopotami maid
The hippopotamus was no ignoramus
And sang her this sweet serenade
Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me follow, down to the hollow
And there let me wallow in glorious mud
The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice
From her seat on that hilltop above
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice
Came tiptoeing down to her love
Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
Of the song that they sang as they met
His inamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet
Worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zpDF3Py7r8
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My word, we are going down memory lane, loved that song as a child
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I had never heard the song though I do know the chorus. Did you realize the second stanza of the YouTube version was different from the one you gave us?
Loved it.
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I think the YouTube link is to a live performance, where one of the choruses is sung in Russian.
The lyrics, which I 'borrowed' from SongLyrics.com are from the version which appears on the LP. (They didn't call them 'albums' in those days!)
Glad you enjoyed it.