Over undulations of acoustic guitar and swelling strings, Alison's silvery, luxuriant vocals gradually blossom from intimate, breathy phrases in the shell-like to a full-blown delivery against a backdrop reminiscent of The Boxer.
This morning, they left their home in Zamalka because of, as she phrases it, "demonstrations and shelling".
In fact, islanders here have coined the phrase "the Sanibel Stoop," for the hunched position shell-seekers assume.
But last weekend, Mr. Thompson did step out of his linguistic shell, gingerly, by using a few Spanish phrases at the Fordham Road Renaissance Festival in the Bronx.
If you remember, a phrase and concern that echoed through America in the shell-shocked aftermath of 9/11 was: Is irony dead?" It seemed no one could imagine humor as a conduit of meaning anymore.
The extreme is screaming meemies, which "Picturesque Expressions" (Verbatim Books) notes originated as a World War II nickname for German rocket shells and is now often confused with the phrase "streaming media".
To the untrained eye, this phrase seemingly sets a ceiling for the absolute most amount of money you will have to shell out for health care before your insurance company says "don't worry, we got this".
If phrases such as "goal refactoring" and "urge propagation" mean nothing to you, perhaps it's time to shell out £2,700 on a four-day workshop to learn the self-improvement philosophy sweeping Silicon Valley: applied rationality.
The other phrase I heard a lot was something to the effect of, "There's no way I'm shelling out all that cash for a PlayStation 3".
In other words, he plays the language of bebop more slowly, with its passing tones and curling phrases, and turns a hard-shell, macho art form into more voluptuous stuff.
