D
We're nearing the end of our saunter through the first letters of the alphabet with the help of Buckley: The Right Word by the late, much-loved William F. Buckley. He was famous for his vast English vocabulary and this is our unassuming appreciation of his loquacity. The definition below is from "A Buckley Lexicon", which was appended to The Right Word, and the example sentence is by way of Buckley's 1987 novel, Mongoose, R.I.P: A Blackford Oakes Mystery. A contemporary example rounds out the day.
didactic (adjective) Characteristic of the teacher, whether in manner, or arrangement, or posture.
"'I am glad to hear that your Spanish is so good, Blacky. And I, Professor Sally Partridge, am competent to test how good it is.' She appeared briefly in the doorway in her dressing gown, affecting her didactic posture at the lectern."
Reviewing the poetry of Campbell McGrath, the literary blogger Bookslut noted: "Another book concerned with the long-form poem and with place, Florida Poems -- wild, didactic, and beautiful; even its few mistakes feel like the right ones -- is a nearly irrefutable argument for McGrath's place in the canon." Tomorrow, E.
