sardoodledom en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /sɑː(ɹ)ˈduːdəldəm/
- (Southern-England) audio
Etymology
Blend of Sardou + doodle + -dom, named after French dramatist Victorien Sardou. Coined by Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist George Bernard Shaw who first used it on the 1 June, 1895 in the Saturday Review when criticising Sardou's well-made plays.
Meanings
-
(uncommon, uncountable) Well-made works of drama that have trivial, insignificant, or melodramatic plots.
Naturally this critic loses no chance to express his contempt for what he calls “Sardoodledom:” the cult of the “wellmade” play. He gives M. Sardou no bail, and barely allows Mr. Pinero to go at large on good behavior.
[1907 April, H. W. Boynton, “Mr. Shaw as Critic”, in The Atlantic:What is new is that we have in movies an art form so exclusively given over to Sardoodledom that a Yale professor thinks that Sardoodledom is ingrained in the celluloid.
2010 [1946], Eric Bentley, The Playwright as a Thinker: A Study of Drama in Modern Times, 4th edition, University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 34:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sardoodledom | alternative | lexicographic |