YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
Word of the Day: Kitsch
I’ve chosen the noun kitsch for you, art lovers, out there today, or at least for those of you who think you are art lovers.
The rest of us who do not have your gaudy sense of taste know that your choice of fashion or design is ugly, without style and frankly, just downright funny.
Kitsch is gaudy fashion or ugly design that is so unstylish it becomes funny.
People who have an unsophisticated taste like kitsch.
But you know what?
I respect your right to have bad taste.
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
However, when it comes to kitsch, beauty is nowhere to be found except in the eyes of the person who bought or made whatever it is we’re talking about.
You have probably seen someone walking down the street wearing cheap, brightly-coloured plastic sunglasses, a colourful dress, brown sandals, and a hat covered in flowers and thought, WOW!
It’s so kitsch that you want to laugh out loud, but you cannot because you are so mesmerized by the absolutely bad taste in fashion.
Like or follow ArtisanEnglish.jp on social media.
That’s right, when something is kitsch, it’s terrible but catchy at the same time.
It makes us suffer cognitive dissonance because what we see is not fashionable.
Still, the simple fact that it exists is a beautiful statement of individualism and, yes, fashionably unfashionable.
Not only clothing but anything can be considered to be kitsch.
Once in a while, we pass a home with all kinds of lawn ornaments placed haphazardly around the garden.
There may be a few pink flamingos, some butt-ugly garden gnomes, and a very out-of-place Santa, but somehow, it is lovely despite all the ugliness.
That’s kitsch.
It’s originally a German word and entered the English language in the mid-1920s.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13-14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 70.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.