Sunday Rest: gobo. Word Not To Use Today.

I was looking through a comments section of a national newspaper (The Guardian, as a matter of fact) where people were sharing their favourite words.

Two of them were oblong and goblet, which are two of my least favourite words because, obviously, oblong makes you sound as if you've got a heavy cold, and a goblet sounds like something you spit in.

Anyway, this led me to considering the word gobo. A gobo is either a shield placed round either a microphone or a sound source to absorb unwanted noises, or a stencil placed in front of a light to cast a particular shadow, or to make a particular shape:





It can be in the shape of anything...a rising moon...summer leaves round a window...

Yes, the word gobo is such an efficient way to destroy the romance of the theatre.

Ah well.

Sunday Rest: gobo (it's said gohboh). This word appeared in the 1930s and is probably an acronym for goes between optics or goes before optics or graphical optical black out.