His definition is one that I - and, I expect, many other admirers - have long had pinned above the desk: "Prose is not to be read aloud but to oneself alone at night, and it is not quick as poetry but rather a gathering web of insinuations... Prose should be a long intimacy between strangers with no direct appeal to what both may have known.
What was wanted, then as now, was a gathering of characters who "stood for" Britain yet were not waxwork ciphers of a nation but, rather, a gathering of individuals still alive enough in their painted incarnations for us to feel at home in their company.
"Anonymous is not a group, but rather an internet gathering," it said in a statement published on 10 December.
Although antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said it was not a formal probe at that stage, but rather an information-gathering exercise — in order to "get the full picture".
Particularly in fields such as law, the humanities and some of the social sciences, where research is not necessarily a matter of gathering data or conducting experiments, but rather of gathering positions, and conducting thought experiments, it can be harder to make a distinction between our use of existing knowledge and our own original contribution that builds on that knowledge.
Even so, one of the strengths of "Room" is that it focuses neither on polemics nor personal tragedy but rather on gathering the many strands of Woolf's formidable intellect into a messy, resonant coherence.
Although sites like the Motley Fool still exist, they remain mainly a forum for sharing investment ideas rather than a gathering place for activists.
In the much-parroted words of its sponsor, Man Group, the Man Booker prize has now "gone global", resembling the Olympics rather than a gathering of former colonies.
Alcohol is banned — an unusual restriction for this kind of festival but in line with the intention of the founders, who wanted a family atmosphere rather than a gathering of musicians "going out with their buddies to jam," Ms. Cockman said.
Dressed in red T-shirts and black shorts, the players engaged in a 90-minute practice that resembled a touch football game among friends rather than a gathering of professionals chasing dreams of fame and fortune.
The team of Roy Asotasi, Nigel Vagana, Dean Widders and Craig Wing, for all its obvious talent, always had the look of something whipped up in a rush, rather than a gathering force organically raised from scratch.
