haltura
n.— «This last depicts a theater troupe’s desperate attempts to take a draft of a new play and, with only 20 minutes preparation, present it to the government censor for approval. As it happens, this drama about a revolution on a tropical island is perfectly awful, phoney art of the kind called haltura in Russian.» —“The Devil Comes to Moscow” by Mikhail Bulgakov Washington Post Nov. 17, 1991. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Advice about college essays from the winner of a top prize for children’s literature: Kelly Barnhill encourages teens to write about experiences that are uniquely their own, from a point of view that is theirs and no one else’s. Plus, why do we say...
While compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicographer James Murray exchanged hundreds of letters a week with authors, advisors, and volunteer researchers. A new collection online lets you eavesdrop on discussions about which words should be...