A happy, happy day to you, wholesome listener, and a warm welcome to this episode of An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents. Today’s word brings back fond memories for me, of a speech I once gave with a friend in primary school. My dear friend could not pronounce today’s word, and I, the mighty seven year old that I was, took it upon myself to correct her each time. It seems that my love of words began at a young age, dear listener. I digress. Today’s word, pronounceable or unpronounceable as it may be is: genre. 

Genre is a word meaning ‘a kind; a stylistic category or sort, especially of literature or other artworks.’ Genre could relate to music, movies, art, literature and more, and examples of different genres include horror, romance, rock and roll, comedy, jazz, sculpture and go on and on and on. They could be as plain as ‘fiction’ or as specific as ‘1920s zombie parody haikus’. Sky’s the limit, really.

The word genre is borrowed from the French word ‘genre’ meaning ‘kind’, which comes from the Latin ‘genus’ or  ‘generem’, from the Ancient Greek ’génos’. The Latin ‘genus’ has several meanings, including ‘birth or origin’, ‘kind, type or class’, ‘species of animal, plant or race’, and ‘set or group’. So, just as ‘genus’ describes the species or type of animal, ‘genre’ describes the area or type of book, art, music and so on. 

Isn’t language wonderful?

Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber

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