The Diamond Age

by Neal Stephenson

catachthonic

transpicuous

vituperative

lithocule

alamodality.

tautology.”

pentatonic

nereids,

callipygious

carya...

eutactic

Bud knew a guy like that who’d somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself.

velleity,

tromp l’oeil,

concinnity

adumbrated

eutactic

Ordering matter was the sole endeavor of Life, whether it was a jumble of self-replicating molecules in the primordial ocean, or a steam-powered English mill turning weeds into clothing, or Fiona lying in her bed turning air into Fiona.

buckminsterfullerene

catalepsis

concinnitous,

spirochetes,

palimpsests.

afflatus

coronach,

pibroch.

“the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

Three girls moved across the billiard-table lawn of a great manor house, circling and swarming about a common center of gravity like gamboling sparrows.

soidisant

parents of small children must perforce have an entirely different sense of irony than unimpaired humankind.

clerestory

anfractuous;

milieu.”

angary