4 responses to “Somebody Does It Better”

  1. Matt

    ‘Supine’, vraiment? De l’illustration j’aurais dit qu’elle était ‘recumbent’. Pourtant, ceci est une délicieuse lecture indépendamment de la position.

    1. James

      Now that’s the kind of close reading every writer dreams of. What better way to honor that attentive correction than by carefully refuting it? : )

      I concede that supine is more commonly used to describe the position of a person on a stretcher rather than one at rest upon a divan, but more than one source suggests that the latter option is permissible, offering reclined as an acceptable synonym.

      Recumbent is most often used to refer to a similarly reclining personage–I picture a post-prandial Roman emperor or a Northwest nerd on a low-slung bike–but technically refers to anyone lying down in any position. Google, almost unbelievably, offers supine as a synonym along with prone and prostrate.

  2. Roger Page

    Superb post, James .

    1. James

      Merci.

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