| 词汇 | stormonter |
| 词源 | stormonter. Stormonter is obsolete except in a historical sense and never made the dictionaries, but it tells an amusing story about Benjamin Franklin, who had among his many gifts a genius for coining words. Lord Stormont, the British ambas- sador in Paris during the Revolution, was the most assiduous spreader of tales about America’s defeats at the hands of Great Britain, his aim of course to color the facts and discourage Euro- pean nations from supporting the American cause. One time a French friend came to Franklin with Stormont’s story that six battalions of Americans had laid down their arms. The French- man wanted to know if this was true. “Oh, no,” Franklin replied gravely, “it is not the truth, it is only a Stormont.” Within a day his witticism swept Paris and stormonter became a new French synonym for lying. Franklin is also responsible for harmonica, the musical instrument he invented in a rude form and named from the Italian armonica, “harmonious.” |
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