The word salvo has more military connotations but you can also use the word figuratively as in the case of opening salvo, which refers to the first in a series of questions or statements used to try to win an argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, opened her mouth and screamed.<\/p>\n
It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on the chandelier chimed gently as they shook.
\nIt rose, passing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor.<\/p>\n
The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin strings snapped, one by one.
\nAs the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar, champagne corks fired a salvo<\/strong>. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A line of wine-glasses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then exploded like hazardous thistledown with attitude.<\/p>\nThere were harmonics and echoes that caused strange effects. In the dressing-rooms the No. 3 greasepaint melted. Mirrors cracked, filling the ballet school with a million fractured images.<\/p>\n
Dust rose, insects fell. In the stones of the Opera House tiny particles of quartz danced briefly…<\/p>\n
Then there was silence, broken by the occasional thud and tinkle.<\/p>\n
Nanny grinned.<\/p>\n
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘now the opera’s over.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2015 Terry Pratchett, Maskerade<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been calculated that what with salvos<\/strong>, royal and military politeness, courteous exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of roadsteads and citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all fortresses and all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc., the civilized world, discharged all over the earth, in the course of four and twenty hours, one hundred and fifty thousand useless shots. At six francs a shot, that comes to nine hundred thousand francs a day, three hundred millions a year, which vanish in smoke. This is a mere details. All this time the poor were dying of hunger.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2015 Victor Hugo, Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The word salvo has more military connotations but you can also use the word figuratively as in the case of opening salvo, which refers to the first in a series of questions or statements used to try to win an argument. Some instances of this word in literature: \u201cAgnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, … Continue reading “That’s the Word for It: Salvo”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[251],"tags":[344,343],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7vAZr-1f7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4886,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/13\/thats-the-word-for-it-apricity\/","url_meta":{"origin":4781,"position":0},"title":"That's the Word for It: Apricity","date":"February 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Apricity is a word that the Pothi.com team stumbled upon on Twitter. It's a rare word, having appeared in 1623 when Henry Cockeram recorded or invented it it for his dictionary. The word never really took off. Here are some instances of this word used in literature: Apricity (n.) the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/apricity.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4882,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/05\/thats-the-word-for-it-braggadocio\/","url_meta":{"origin":4781,"position":1},"title":"That's the Word for It: Braggadocio","date":"February 5, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This flamboyant word was first used by the poet Edmund Spencer in the poem Faerie Queene. The word seems to be making a comeback in political circles. Even President Donald Trump attempted to use the word- \"I wrote the Art of the Deal. I say that not in a braggadocious\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/braggadocio.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4567,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/10\/thats-the-word-for-it-contronym\/","url_meta":{"origin":4781,"position":2},"title":"That\u2019s the Word For It: Contronym","date":"May 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you ever thought about why fast means quick\u00a0and at the same time means to immobilize? When a word or phrase means its opposite as well, it is called a contronym. Slang employs this kind of inversion of meaning, take for instance the word \u2018sick\u2019 or \u2018wicked\u2019 now used to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/instascribe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/contronym.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4699,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/14\/thats-the-word-for-it-profluent\/","url_meta":{"origin":4781,"position":3},"title":"That's the Word For it: Profluent","date":"August 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"This word has Middle English and Latin roots and has to do with flow. You could use the word to describe music or a piece of writing. Here's an example of how the word can be used. \"A few years later, when I learned that Jayne Anne founded the MFA\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/profluent.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4726,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/04\/thats-the-word-for-it-fugacious\/","url_meta":{"origin":4781,"position":4},"title":"That's the Word For It: Fugacious","date":"September 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The word fugacious deals with emotions and interestingly also to the idea of withering leaves in botany.\u00a0 Fugacious\u00a0derives from the Latin verb\u00a0fugere or flee. \u00a0Some derivative words include fugitive, refuge, and subterfuge. A beautiful word to use in literature: \u201cLove is a fugacious word. Rounded and comfortable, it lifts the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/fugacious.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4629,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/10\/thats-the-word-for-it-spelunker\/","url_meta":{"origin":4781,"position":5},"title":"That\u2019s the Word For it: Spelunker","date":"July 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A spelunker is a Latin sounding term for caver. According to Merriam Webster, the\u00a0word came into adventure sport lingo because of the author and outdoorsman Clair Willard Perry. The word seems to be used a great deal in literature: \u201cI have no special desire to go crawl around in caves,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/instascribe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/spelunker.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4783,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781\/revisions\/4783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/salvo.png?resize=560%2C315&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n