After conferring privately, friends of Hannah Landsdown are fairly certain that she just recently learned the meaning of the word “bucolic” within the past week.
“She’s been saying it really frequently,” says Cari Jaramillo. “It’s so uncalled for. We get it, you learned a new word.”
Landsdown has used the word bucolic no less than six times in the last eight days, referring to a painting, a town upstate, and the illustration on a container of ice cream, among other things.
“If she really needed to be describing everything with countryside vibes this much,” says friend, Leslie Adams. “She should at least throw in a ‘pastoral’ or ‘rural’ or something. This just doesn’t seem right to me.”
“She’s technically using the word correctly,” says Jaramillo. “But the context is odd. I don’t think she realizes how unnatural it sounds in conversation.”
Asked whether she realizes the impression her word use has made, Landsdown is defensive.
“Bucolic? I guess that word does sound funny to people who don’t know what it means. It’s defined as ‘relating to the pleasant aspects of rustic country life.’ You know, like fields and stuff. Pretty common.”
“We know what it means,” says Adams.
