Word of the Day: escritoire

escritoire (n)

A writing desk.

"Facing away from him, she pressed her lips tightly together for a second--to suppress the words soaring temper set on her tongue--then evenly stated, 'My aunt Edith's diary. I left it in the escritoire, but now it's gone.' Something close to despair colored her tone."
--Stephanie Laurens, The Taste of Innocence

Perhaps you are seated at an escritoire at this very moment. For myself, I prefer to curl up on the couch (also: sofa; grandma called it a "davenport") with my laptop as I tap my way along the information superhighway to my literary destiny.

Not that I don't have a desk. In fact, I have a few. My favorite is an antique roll-top desk with many shelves and cubby holes and secret compartments. If I had a traditional diary or a controversial will or some terrible secret committed to paper, I suppose that is where you would find it -- if I happened to live in a Victorian novel. As it is, I mostly use my escritoire as a repository for junk mail and miscellaneous missives from official sources: those scraps of paper everyone receives that are almost too dull to peruse but too important to recycle. The phrase "Save for tax purposes" has prevented many a tedious form from being reconstituted as bathroom tissue. Yes, if my roll-top could talk it would have many a soporific story to tell.

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" you ask.

Because they both have quills? But I only have Bics.