All Comments on 'Martha in America Ch. 02'

bow

Thanks for the comment. Maybe you and others are right about smirk, at least by that definition. Everyone seems to pick up on Chesterfield's definition, whereas I mean the type of smile one makes in appreciation of an suggestive remark about sex, of which there are many in my stories. "A smug look," perhaps; "leer" would be too strong. "Snickering with a smile" might say it, but readers don't like "snickering" either.

Maybe the many readers who have not complained have understood how I have used the word.

In one of those obsolete artifacts of the 20th century (a “book”), Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Third Edition, 1988, the intransitive verb “smirk” is defined as “to smile in a conceited, knowing, or annoyingly complacent way.” The author’s usage conforms well to that definition.

Online M-Webster now has a more negatively tinged definition. Good old Sam Johnson has the one I like: "smile wantonly."

For those who don't use the word "wanton":

http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/?page_id=7070&i=2240