

Attempts to resolve the Quandary:


Whenever a new sous chef starts working for him, Raúl plays the martinet: dressed cap-a-pie in starched chef's whites, he welcomes his new employee by demanding to be told the difference between a macédoine de légumes and a Russian salad, and accepts no claptrap for an answer. (by Eli)


When I let a moment pass after burping softly, as I cherished the delicious macédoine that my hosts had served me, Martin's five-year old daughter yelled, right in the middle of the claptrap characteristic of little girls everywhere, "You are supposed to say 'Excuse me'!", shocking me with an uncanny reminder of the kind of martinet that her father used to be, as the mother casually remarked: "Cap-à-pie, she's a martinette!". (by QuaQua)


I'm no linguistic martinet, and can tolerate a jargon or two, but the Senior Vice President's macédoine of state-of-the-art synergies, value-added bottlenecks and other scalable inanities during today's team-building session inspired me to think outside the box, specifically to "reach out" and try boxing the speaker cap-a-pie, and when my bare fist missed the moving target (despite some very promising positive momentum), I redrew my roadmap and pursued a new aggressive strategy of leveraging a folded annual report to clap the trap that blathered such insufferable claptrap. (by Rudi)


With characteristic economy Oxford struck out the ghost-writer’s original stage direction "Bring on the mad girl, clad cap-a-pie in a macédoine of flowers to berate the martinet king with lyrical claptrap," and replaced it with just two words: "Enter Ophelia." (by Sensil)


Ralph, a real martinet of a manager, surveyed my coworkers, cap-à-pie, like a drill sergeant at inspection time, and prepared to utter some claptrap about the company’s dress code when a spoonful of the macédoine de fruits I was ladling over my yogurt “mysteriously” found its way to the toe of his polished wingtip—fifteen feet away. (by luigi)


"Mais oui, mademoiselle Tinguette, ma cherie," breathed Archibald, rouged cap-a-pie in the most utterly delectable confusion, "Your angelic amour is more precieux a moi than a sevre bowlful of glace cherries, choice and chubby! - mais liberally admixed avec other toothsome fruitage de sundrie kinde" (he added, sotto voce, just in case she wasn't that partial to cherries), "et de plus...," - "Doggone it," barked the petite martinet, "'Ow you say? - cut the adjectivally macedoine claptrap, stuff the diacriticals, and wet my whistle, chop-chop, one two, un deux!" (by Bud Myte)


After the roast duck, there was a macedoine of tropical fruits (concocted earlier in the afternoon by Guillaume, martinet of the kitchen, who had disallowed my Caucasian whortleberries in the mix because they were insufficiently equatorial), throughout which we listened to the latest faddish claptrap from Cousin Louise, a cap-a-pie fool if ever there was one. (by cusheamus)


Set cap-a-pie in macedoine regalia broadcasting relentless claptrap about the better life he would bring the people of Uganda Idi Amin more often seemed the portly clown than mad and murderous martinet. (by gumo420)


The martinet of a principal remained silent as the outlandish student stood before him dressed cap-a-pie in a macédoine of loud clothing expelling claptrap excuses for his behavior. (by luz898)
The Quandary for Tuesday, November 24, 2009 consisted of: Challenge: use all four words together in one illustrative sentence.

Since September 2009, word lovers have offered 7395 sentences — each one a surprise — to QQ's unique and growing library. Explore other Quandaries through our word list or the calendar below. View yesterday's QQ resolutions or pick a day at random.



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Contact: rudi at quadrivialquandary dot com.