The Colour of Museums

If you think that, because my sabbatical theme is on museum, I'm an art or history connoisseur, you couldn't be further from the truth. My vocabulary in describing something that I enjoy would normally be limited to "That's nice!". Not exactly very profound, is it? So, I was intrigued by this write-up on a museum in New York, which describes the museum as "exuberantly abristle with the usual Victorian gewgaws". I did a quick search: gewgaw refers to a decorative trinket; the word has its origin in Middle Age English giuegaue. In simple English, the museum has a large collection of trinkets from the Victorian era. Now this sounds utterly unromantic and unexciting. Which leads me to deduce that, to really enjoy museums, you must make the effort to build up your vocabulary so as to add colour and depth to your emotions and experience.