Those words rang out across the Internet last week.
Mark Vanhoenacker left academia to work as a management consultant, a position that afforded him regular opportunities to stare out of airplane windows and recall childhood dreams of becoming a pilot. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Times and a columnist for Slate.
hoary: very old and well known and therefore no longer interesting
...complete with a gravestone illustration and the hoary cliché of the singing fat lady.
spasm: [countable]~ (of sth) a sudden strong feeling or reaction that lasts for a short time
So what brought on this latest spasm of morbidity?
imminent: close in time
demise: (formal or humorous) death
why is the American so fixated on the supposedly imminent demise of classical music?
kick the bucket (informal or humorous) to die死；翘辫子；蹬腿儿
how superflous it is to declare 2014 the year the art form kicked the bucket
creepy: (informal) causing an unpleasant feeling of fear or slight horror
bloodlust: a strong desire to kill or be violent
-monger: someone who says unpleasant things
rumour-monger 谣言传播者 doom-monger
autopsy: (pl. autopsies) an official examination of a dead body by a doctor in order to discover the cause of death
There is a a creepy bloodlust to the doom-mongering of classical music, as though an autopsy were being conducted on a still-breathing body.
purpotedly: If you say that something haspurportedlybeen done, you mean that you think that it has been done but you cannot be sure.
Classical-music concern-trolls toss poorly aimed barbs.
abstruse: (formal, often disapproving) difficult to understand 难解的；深奥的
palpable: that is easily noticed by the mind or the senses易于察觉的；可意识到的；明显的
It was palpably clear what she really meant.
