This Week’s Word: Gondola

Gondola (n.): A set of island shelves in a shop: used for
displaying goods.

‘It is a most beautiful rendition, Mr Bennett’, I complimented my artistic amanuensis upon his arrival in the Scriptorium. He looked somewhat surprised at such an unsolicited eulogy so early in the morning.

‘Why thank you, Mr Teed. To which rendition are you referring?’

‘Why, gondola, of course!’ I ejaculated, waving this week’s copy of the Times Magazine in his general direction. ‘It marries perfectly the romance of Venice with the efflorescence of Gap’.

‘If you say so’.

‘And I do. You know we have Mrs Spelling’s niece to thank for that word?’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Pauline Spelling’.

‘Has she? Was she writing something for you?’

‘Sharp, Mr Bennett, sharp. No, Pauline supplied our dear housekeeper with an anecdotal account that in certain fashion emporia at the shopping mall known, I believe, as the Designer Outlet, the assistants refer to the gondalas in the centre of the store. You may also be interested to note, that they term the display shelves against the walls carcasses, although you will be pleased to hear I have spared you the task of illustrating that particular homograph’.

‘Be thankful for small mercies’, Mr Bennett mumbled.

‘Quite so, quite so’.

‘And Mrs Spelling relayed this information to you, freely and of her own volition?’ my esteemed colleague asked in what I can only describe as a tone of incredulity.

‘You are right to adopt such an interrogative mode, Mr Bennett’, I conceded. ‘There was indeed a degree of stealth involved in my recovery of said anecdote’.

‘You mean you’ve bugged old Spelling’s place?’ Mr Bennett cried, eyes wide in excitement and sideburns aquiver.

‘Not quite such daring stealth as that. It was in the course of my secondary morning movement, for which purpose I had repaired to Mrs Spelling’s water closet in the hope of passing the time with her latest copy of Chat magazine, when I overheard Pauline regale her aunt with the account’.

‘Ah, right’, replied my friend as he ascended to his drawing perch. ‘So you eavesdropped from the crapper. Nice one’.