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Thursday, 26 February 2015

Xylophones: a rant.

From the Telegraph online, 7/2/15.

'...everyone (even babies) knows that wooden xylophones make a rubbish noise.'



This sort of very fine xylophone comes from Mozambique. They are called Timbila.

Now, it would be unreasonable to complain of a journalist to whom Greek was, well, all Greek, but really the smallest amount of research would have revealed that if xylophone isn't made of wood then it isn't a xylophone. It's a glockenspiel.

Hwoof!

Word To Use Today: xylophone. Or glockenspiel. The first comes from the Greek xulon, which means wood, and phōnē, voice or sound; the second comes from German words meaning bell and play.





2 comments:

  1. WA HEY!! I never knew that! Good on you for pointing it out! Will be more careful now when I refer to these instruments.

    ReplyDelete

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