Literary notes about clumsy (AI summary)
The word “clumsy” has been used in literature with remarkable versatility, often serving as a descriptor for both physical awkwardness and metaphorical ineptitude. In some works, it characterizes tangible traits—a servant’s careless behavior [1] or a horseman’s unsteady performance [2]—while in others it critiques abstract constructs such as poorly executed solutions [3] or unwieldy literary devices [4]. Authors have also employed the term humorously or disparagingly to underscore human frailty, as when clumsy behavior marks the lack of refinement in a character’s actions [5] or even in the evaluation of objects and ideas, like the awkward assembly of machinery or prose [6]. In all these contexts, “clumsy” emerges as a multifaceted term that paints a vivid picture of imperfection, whether it appears as physical misfortune or as a subtle indictment of artistic and intellectual shortcomings.
- How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?”
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - Jos, a clumsy and timid horseman, did not look to advantage in the saddle.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - I am too inquisitive, too incredulous, too high spirited, to be satisfied with such a palpably clumsy solution of things.
— from Ecce Homo by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - I have cast about widely to find a title for this section; and I confess that the word “Imperialism” is a clumsy version of my meaning.
— from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton - And suddenly, between two great clumsy idiots—“Get out of the way there!”
— from The Garden Party, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield - The style of the prose in which the Aitareya is composed is crude, clumsy, abrupt, and elliptical.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell
