Accidental (music) Accidental (music) In music, an accidental is a note of a pitch (or pitch class) that is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the sharp (), flat (), and natural () symbols, among others, mark such notes—and those symbols are also called accidentals. In the measure (bar) where it appears, an accidental sign raises or lowers the immediately following note (and any repetition of it in the bar) from its normal pitch, overriding sharps or flats in the key signature. A note is usually raised or lowered
Ascent of the A-Word the book as an "often raucously funny account of what seems to be America’s most popular insult" which manages to be neither "exceedingly snarky" nor "overly academic and pretentious". Ascent of the A-Word Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years is a 2012 book by the American linguist Geoffrey Nunberg which analyzes the history of the epithet "asshole". In "Ascent", Nunberg traces to World War II the origins of the word as an epithet, when it was used as a term of abuse for superior officers considered abusive or self-important. Following the soldiers' return home from the war,