FASHION Magazine

Word: Pow

Meaning: An exclamation; the sound of a collision or explosion.

Word: Kismet

Meaning: Fate, or sometimes destiny; from the Turkish qismet or Arabic qismah, meaning “portion” or “lot.”

Word: Cacography

Definition: Bad, messy handwriting, from Greek kakos (bad) and graphy (writing). The opposite of calligraphy. It can also mean bad spelling, but you don’t want to get me started on that, f’reals.

Word: McLuhanism

Definition: Basically, a set of principles derived from and defined by the thinking of McLuhan, as in Marshall, the ’60s radical thinker and media prophet. You literally can’t be Canadian and go to high school without knowing at least one thing about him: usually, that “the medium is the message.”

Word: Man-acle

Definition: One who makes slaves of men; serial heart-stealer; divorce queen. Okay, I semi-made it up from the word for handcuffs, manacle. P.S. I definitely do not mean ball and chain; gross.

Word: Titian

Meaning: The Italian Renaissance painter (c. 1488) known for naturalistic colour, realistic brushwork and versatility. He painted portraits, landscapes and religious images equally well—but in colour lexicon, he’s remembered for one thing: the auburn colour he painted. The term “titian” refers to a natural, though not usual, shade of red found in hair—famously created by the artist. He loved redheaded honeys like nobody’s business.

Every day of every week, I define, and opine on, some cultural mot du jour. It’s like Sesame Street, but fancy. Today my favourite word is “vérité,” as in cinema, Cassavetes, and… reality television.

Word: “Vérité,” as in “Cinema Vérité”

Meaning: A genre of film and television that aims to show more of life’s reality by representing it in a truthful way, i.e. with realistic dialogue, natural lighting, and seemingly happenstance action.