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pronounce LEITMOTIF: Say it "LITE mo teef." To hear it, click here. You might find it tricky to remember how to say the "leit" part, since in English, we say "ei" all kinds of ways--compare "their," "seize," and "height." It's a mess. But the great news is that "leitmotif" comes from German, where "ei" is always pronounced as a long I. Check out these German words that you probably know, and hear how the "ei" is always a long I: "Heidi," "gesundheit," "poltergeist," "edelweiss," and "zeitgeist." So, you can remember to give "leitmotif" a long I, too. connect this word to others: Leitmotifs come from the world of music. But they've spilled over into other arts. Let's check out how they work in literature. If you've caught Neil Gaiman's fantastic MasterClass on storywriting, you might remember his odd advice: Give your characters funny hats. Maybe literally, maybe not. But somehow, help your reader easily identify who's who by giving each character some distinctive quality, something easy for the narrator to mention and easy for the reader to recognize. That way, whenever the character enters the scene, the reader knows who he is. Let's check out an example from Gaiman's novel Coraline. Near the beginning, we read this: In the flat above Coraline's, under the roof, was a crazy old man with a big mustache. A little while later, we read: The old man leaned down, so close that the bottoms of his mustache tickled Coraline's ear. And much later, we read: "Something has frightened them," said the old man, scratching his mustache. A big mustache, a funny hat--any marker that pops up again and again, helping us know who's who or what's what, is a literary leitmotif: a signature flourish that immediately introduces a specific character or concept. As we move away from children's literature like Coraline, we see leitmotifs get abstract. For example, if you've read Madame Bovary, you probably noticed how Emma is constantly gazing out of a window. Again and again, there she is, looking out the window, trapped inside, showing us how wistful and full of longing she is. Looking out the window is her leitmotif. It's not a big mustache or a funny hat, but it's still a marker, one that pops up again and again in close connection with this important character. If you break the word leitmotif in half, you'll see that it literally means "leading motive," or "motive leader." That bit "leit" is German for "lead," just like in the word g__leiter, meaning "district leader," or, less literally, "someone who acts like a mean, petty little dictator." Can you recall it? (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)   definition: Let's start by thinking about the word "motive," from the Latin movere, "to move." "Motive" has many meanings, but the one we want right now is the artistic one. A motive, or a motif, is a feature or idea that comes up again and again in a piece of music or literature. Now let's take the German word for "motive," motiv, and combine it with leiten, "to lead." That gives us leitmotiv, literally a "leading motive." A little tune or a musical phrase that seems to lead an important bit of the story onto the stage. In other words, it's a bit of music that always accompanies some particular character, place, emotion, situation, or theme within an opera, a drama, or any kind of show or performance. These were popularized by the German composer Richard Wagner, famous for his operas, and today you hear them all over the place in shows and movies. We took leitmotiv into English around 1880, and we most often spell it "leitmotif," with an "f" at the end instead of the "v." (We made the spelling look less German and more English.) Leitmotifs are pretty cool because they use music to help tell the story itself. That is, you hear a leitmotif--a little snippet of music, such as "dun DUN... dun DUN... dunDun dunDUNdunDUN"--and you think "ah ha, here comes Jaws." Leitmotifs are short, distinctive, easy to recognize, and easy to associate with the ideas or characters that they represent. More generally, and more abstractly, a leitmotif can be any idea or theme that shows up again and again in some particular context, in a way that reminds you of a musical leitmotif. grammatical bits: Part of speech: Noun, the countable kind: "Each of the main characters has his own leitmotif;" "The drama is full of leitmotifs." Other forms:  Like I mentioned earlier, if you prefer, you can use the German spelling "leitmotiv," with the "v" at the end. The plural is "leitmotifs." how to use it: "Leitmotif" is a beautiful word with an artistic, sophisticated tone. You might use it in its stricter sense to label any musical tidbit associated with some element of a story. For example: "In Hamilton, whenever Burr takes the stage to speak as the narrator, he's accompanied by that catchy, thundering, contemplative leitmotif, 'BUM bu-bu-BUM BUM BUM.'" And you might use it in its more general sense, swapping it in for "theme" or "motif" when you want to emphasize how something crops up again and again and again. You could point out that some particular idea, goal, symbol, image, question, or issue has become a leitmotif, usually in some sphere, some situation, or even someone's life. Here's the Washington Post: "The question [of whether or not someone dyes his hair] has become a leitmotif of presidential politics, and the answer is almost always no." And here's the artist Kehinde Wiley: "Thrill and fear gave rise to that exhibition. That's potentially why it was so successful. I think that's the leitmotif of my life: you throw yourself into moments of fear, and on the other side of it — if you survive — are the rewards." You might be thinking, what's the difference between a motif and a leitmotif? Not much anymore! Their meanings have overlapped, as Merriam-Webster has noted.  examples: "In the Ring, every character has his or her own leitmotif, or signature tune."      — Howard Goodall, The Story of Music, 2012    "The sculpture uses a common leitmotif — trees and stones — in [the artist Giuseppe Penone's] vocabulary."      — Gal Koplewitz, The New Yorker, 10 December 2018    "The visual leitmotif in Woody Allen's 2005 drama 'Match Point' -- the tennis ball hitting the tippy-top of the net in slow motion, echoed by a similar shot of the incriminating ring hitting a stone wall... crystallized Allen's themes of chance and fortune."    — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 18 January 2008 has this page helped you understand "leitmotif"? Awesome, I'm glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. study it: Explain the meaning of "leitmotif" without saying "signature riff" or "often-recurring idea or theme." try it out: In the New Yorker, Gal Koplewitz wrote about his grandmother, a piano player: "The 'Appassionata' was the first sonata she had attempted on her own... She was in her early twenties, and the sonata became the leitmotif of my grandfather's courtship: he continued to whistle its theme to her for decades, on walks in their leafy Jerusalem neighborhood." With that in mind as an example, talk about a song (or a saying) that became a leitmotif of some part of your own life. If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) before you review, play: Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out. Our game for this month is "Provocative Verbs." Check out the headline below. Originally, it included some highly emotional verb, like "bushwhack," "agonize," or "soar." But I've swapped it out for an emotionless one. Try to restore the strong feelings that the headline originally evoked by choosing your own highly emotional verb to swap back in. For example, instead of "St. Jude Keeps Billions While Many of Its Families Use Their Savings," you might come up with "St. Jude Hoards Billions While Many of Its Families Drain Their Savings," the original provocative headline from ProPublica.  Scroll all the way down to see the original headline. You might think of the same verbs as the original writers did, or yours might be even spicier.  Try this one today: From the Conversation: "Death penalty can express society's outrage – but biases often affect the verdict." review this word: 1. Cory Arnold mused, playfully, that the opposite of a leitmotif is a _____. A. nightmotif: a painting or sculpture suffused with the deep, rich, dark colors of moonless nights, making the entire work extremely difficult to photograph B. darkmotif: an inverted or otherwise disguised musical tidbit that mirrors another leitmotif, foreshadowing that two characters are actually the same person C. heavymotif: a filmed commercial or other piece of advertising featuring oppressive imagery and characters collapsing under the weight of their pain points, finally finding relief with the product being sold 2. According to Alastair Macaulay, in the ballet "La Fille Mal Gardée," an important leitmotif is _____. He explains: "_____." A. the peaceful countryside .. [The ballet] shows the rural community that knows and celebrates the lovers B. the purity of love .. Lise [is] the heroine, and her beloved [is] Colas... The heroine's mother wants her daughter to marry the wrong man, but cannot prevail against the evident rightness of young love C. dancing with ribbons .. At first they merely play at being horse and driver... Their ribbon games turn into poetry; they make a cat’s cradle together — a child's game, but one that now expresses all the intricacy of their love Answers to the review questions: 1. B 2. C From the game, the original headline: "Death penalty can express society's outrage – but biases often taint the verdict" a final word: I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.