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The Matthew-Livvy Lexicon.

Affection & defenses

The delicate dance

A relationship between saying something and leaving oneself an exit.

The delicate dance names a recognizable way of communicating affection through cleverness, qualification and indirection. The speakers do not merely perform it; they discuss its merits, point out its maneuvers and occasionally demand less of it. Their analysis is itself part of the exchange. A phrase such as delicate defense can both identify a protective move and supply another elegant layer of protection, making plain speech a recurring possibility rather than a final stage.

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Daily life

circadian

adjective

Favorable to sleeping, eating and calling at a sustainable hour, elevated into a broad lifestyle virtue. Anti-circadian nights supply the corresponding charge of recklessness.

House style

intangled

adjective

Deliberately entangled with an i. A friend's reported misspelling becomes a reusable account of being caught up with someone, then an image, a sticker and a branch of the shared vocabulary.

Affection & defenses

mimetic

adjective

Recognizably mirroring one another: adopting a word, wanting the same thing, making the same demand or giving a familiar response. It can name closeness, comic imitation or the slightly unsettling prospect that everything is becoming reciprocal.