By Chinua Asuzu
A visitation is not necessarily synonymous with a visit.
A visitation means either (1) an authoritative, formal, legal, or official visit; or (2) a divine, supernatural, or transcendental appearance (not always benevolent—you don’t look forward to a “visitation of God,” which can be as ominous as an “act of God”).
In Catholicism, “the Visitation” refers to the Virgin Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth or the 31 May annual festival commemorating this event. Luke 1:39–56.
Chinua Asuzu, Learned Writing (Partridge, 2019), 700.
Plus…
Dominique Bouhour’s last words illustrate the em dash and a magnificent obsession with grammar—the abiding concern of the noblest and purest souls.
Dominique Bouhour (1628–1702) was a French Jesuit priest, essayist, and grammarian.
Even at the point of death, Bouhour’s concern with grammar did not abate.
He said, “I am about to—or I am going to—die. Either expression is correct.”
Those are em dashes right there.
Although he spoke—rather than wrote—the words, he thought the em dashes into his last words, as all reporters of those words testify by their rendering of them, and as all snoots will instantly recognize and appreciate.
Chinua Asuzu, Learned Writing (Partridge, 2019), 356~357.
