[Ads-l] an indirect reminder of a hapax legomenon

[Laurence Horn]

Today's Times contained an obit for ex-Queen Anne of Romania (widow of deposed King Michael):
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/world/europe/romania-queen-anne-obituary.html

Toward the end, one of Anne's predecessors on the Romanian throne is mentioned:

"She [Anne} will have the most lavish royal funeral in Romania since the death in 1938 of Queen Marie, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria."

And yes, that was the Marie famously memorialized (and impersonated) by one of our all-world quote magnets:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea; 
And love is a thing that can never go wrong; 
And I am Marie of Roumania.

--Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well (1937)

And yes, "extemporanea", unlisted in the OED, apparently made its first and virtually only appearance in the written record in this verse.

LH

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