Such was the case with Endeavour's episode titled Fugue; I played in orchestras and studied instruments, I knew it was a musical reference, but certainly an episode featuring a serial killer and a opera-loving detective was suggesting more. Indeed it was.
In fact the show is a veritable smörgåsbord of wordsmithing delights -- blame it on the producer's unwavering dedication to Oxford authenticity. That university doesn't play around. So, it is not uncommon to see this ignorant American get a sly look on their face, popping in and out of my comfortable television viewing chair in order to dutifully grab pen & paper, followed by researching the viability of vocabulary for your
1word1day pleasure. And the lesson here is that the better you understand words, the better you can come to understand yourself and life, the more depth you add to any personal endeavor. Remember to keep it fun though, for even a clever private dick needn't be an arrogant one (see: doryphore).
A young Detective Morse in BBC's Endeavour series.
fugue [ˈfyüg]:
origin: (1597) Italian via Latin; fuga, fugere= flight
noun
1. Musically -- a composition where themes are repeated and interspersed into different parts (considered literally or figuratively as "voices"), building in a pattern, entwining and separating, until culminating into one successive sound.
→ here is an example by Bach; "voices" illustrated in a video with simple bit graphics
2. Metaphorically -- To resemble a fugue, as in having significant interweaving or repetitive elements building to a significant purpose; to artistically and methodically reveal a connection in seemingly unlike things.
3. Psychologically -- a disturbed condition of temporary/reversible amnesia, where a person commits various acts in a seeming state of awareness, but when their consciousness returns cannot recollect any of those acts; a dissociative disorder where a person takes temporary leave of their senses (although there are varieties within psychological fugues).
→ see also: hypnotism & somnambulism
