In Brideshead Revisited, the novel I've just finished re-reading, Evelyn Waugh uses a number of big words, including "manumission".
Do you know what it means? Without looking it up. I didn't.
As a postscript, I have a vague idea there was a popular club of this name in Ibiza a few years back, but I may be wrong. I didn't think clubbers were that literate.
It is a term from Roman law and it means "formal release from slavery". If I remember it correctly, it was done by tapping the slave's shoulder three times with a wooden stick. (You acquire this sort of almost useless information when you live with law students at the dormitory: actually, they used that term for splitting up with their girlfriends ;-))
ReplyDeleteThanks, viktor, that's the kind of comment I like - both informative and amusing.
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