Luminous Sightings

The insidious spread of “luminous” has claimed another victim, this time no less a literary giant than John Updike. Yes, it appears even Pulitzer Prize winning authors have fallen victim to the adjective’s wily charms.

In his review of Peter Carey’s new novel “Theft: A Love Story,” featured in the May 29 issue of The New Yorker, Updike writes: “Russia for Nabokov and Ireland for Joyce became luminous reconstructions, shimmering in every lost and recalled detail.”

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I expect less of the folks at Us Weekly and they always deliver. In a piece on self-tanners and bronzers in the May 29 issue, the magazine reports: “Jergens Soft Shimmer moisturizing lotion is both a self-tanner and luminizing lotion.”

So now it's a verb, too.