"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."
Tuesday, 20 August 2013
Phatic
In linguistics, a phatic expression is one whose only function is to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information. An example might be the use of 'Eh' at the end of a sentence - "What do think, eh?"
My daughter Helen commented in November 2008 in her Blog that she was now keeping a notebook of new words that she came across during her reading. "This week I bought a lovely little leather bound book to write new words in as I read them . I've added a few from "1984", but my favourite has to be persiflage (from the French persifler) which means banter." I later discovered that my older daughter, Bryony, also kept a similar notebook.
This inspired me to create a Word blog. This will include both new words, favourite words and the origins of phrases that we commonly use. A definition and some comment, perhaps even a relevant quotation, will acompany the word or phrase.
“I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me.” - Winnie the Pooh
Does the ubiquitous and annoying "you know" at the end of every phrase also count? If so, is there a way to have it struck from the language?
ReplyDeleteWhether it counts as a phatic or not, i'd vote to remove that one.
It certainly does count and I couldn't agree more. It is particularly popular in parts of Liverpool and it makes me cringe.
DeleteScriptor,
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty Canadian, eh.
Well done!
McG