Hear, hear!

   I once struggled with whether it was 'Here, here!' or 'Hear, hear!' when someone was shouting their agreement in the Houses of Parliament.   The answer is 'Hear, hear' and there is a good justification for that on this page.

Acyrologias and malapropisms

Acyrologia (noun; plural acyrologias)

An acyrologia is an inexact, inappropriate or improper use of a word.  It can be applied to the inexact use of words in place of ones with a similar sound, more usually thought of as a malapropism after Mrs Malaprop, a character in the Sheridan play 'The Rifles' or should that be 'The Rivals'.  

A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism) is the use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance. An example is Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes".  The word malapropism comes ultimately from the French mal à propos meaning "inappropriate" via "Mrs. Malaprop", a character in the Richard Brinsley Sheridan comedy 'The Rivals' (1775) who habitually misused her words. Dogberryism comes from "Officer Dogberry", the name of a character in the William Shakespeare play 'Much Ado About Nothing'. These are the two best-known fictional characters who made this kind of error — there are many other examples.   Malapropisms also occur as errors in natural speech.  Malapropisms are often the subject of media attention, especially when made by politicians or other prominent individuals.

Aerumnous

   Aerumnous is an adjective and meant full of trouble, troublesome.  Sadly it has fallen out of use but surely it is just begging to be re-introduced to describe the behavious of the Department of Work and Pensions.  It sounds exactly the sort of word you would want to use when when you wanted to be officious about someone's irksome behaviour.

Elucubration

   Elucubration (sadly now obsolete) meant studying or writing something useful by candlelight or while staying up late. 

Rather like me at this moment except that my candles are electric light bulbs and I've actually got up early rather than stayed up late - so, actually, nothing at all like me. 

Anpeyn

   I anpeyn most of the time.  I am at the moment anpeyning to do this post without any typographical errors.  To anpeyn simply means to try one's hardest.

The antonym anp was frequently used in the past in place of the now more common amp.  So if I were to reintroduce this archaic word into the language I should perhaps write it as ampeyn.  No one can say I don't ampeyn to give you the proper word for things!

Selfie

   Welcome to the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year for 2013 - selfie.  A selfie is a type of self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone. ...


The Urban Dictionary has this super definition - A picture taken of yourself that is planned to be uploaded to Facebook, Myspace or any other sort of social networking website. You can usually see the person's arm holding out the camera in which case you can clearly tell that this person does not have any friends to take pictures of them so they resort to Myspace to find internet friends and post pictures of themselves, taken by themselves. A selfie is usually accompanied by a kissy face or the individual looking in a direction that is not towards the camera.

(My spillchucker didn't recognise selfie but since I am so unlikely to use it I don't think I'll bother adding it...)

Epizeuxis

   In linguistics, an epizeuxis is the repetition of words in immediate succession, for vehemence or emphasis.  Damn, damn, damn - that's another word I need in my vocabulary and will probably forget.

All about doing good…

  Benevolence refers to the character trait or moral virtue of being disposed to act for the benefit of others.  

Beneficence  is the act of doing good, being kind or charitable; it includes all actions intended to benefit others. In bioethics the two words are entirely different and the principle of beneficence refers to a moral obligation to act for the benefit of others - most acts of beneficence are therefore in some way obligatory.  Beneficence may be considered to include four components: (1) one ought not to inflict evil or harm (sometimes called the principle of nonmaleficence); (2) one ought to prevent evil or harm; (3) one ought to remove evil or harm; and (4) one ought to do or promote good.

Kindheartedness is sympathy arising from a kind heart; having a kind disposition.

Generosity is the quality of being kind and generous; the quality or fact of being plentiful or large.

Munificence is liberality in bestowing gifts; extremely liberal and generous of spirit.

Altruism is unselfish concern.

Magnanimity means munificence; liberality in bestowing gifts; extremely liberal and generous of spirit.  (This is where we start going round in circles and discover a number of the words are entirely synonymous.) But magnanimity can also mean courageously noble in spirit and heart; generous in forgiving an insult or injury; free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness.

The above words are all still currently in use.  Sadly a word that means benevolent in speech – benedicence – has fallen out of use.  Perhaps nowadays we are more inclined to do good than to speak kindly.

Colloquial

 I have sometimes used the word colloquial to describe words on this blog. I should explain that colloquial does not mean slang.   

 

Slang is a kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful speech, made up typically of short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness, humour, irreverence, or other effect; language peculiar to a group; argot or jargon.

Colloquial is often assumed to mean slang but it doesn't.  It simply means as used in a conversational sense; used in ordinary conversation; not formal or literary. Even a look at its synonyms yields ‘everyday’, ‘common’, and ‘idiomatic’ but not slang.  Colloquialisms are therefore perfectly acceptable in conversation whereas slang may or may not be.

Rhyming Reduplications

  

Rhyming reduplications are words comprised of two parts (usually hyphenated) which rhyme.  

Classic examples are mish-mash, hodgepodge, helter-skelter, mumbo-jumbo, nitty-gritty, willy-nilly, helter-skelter, hocus-pocus, hanky-panky, higgledy-piggledy, rumpy-pumpy, topsy-turvy, shilly-shally, raggle-taggle, namby-pamby, fuddy-duddy and the more recent chick-flick. And, of course, who can forget Brian Hyland’s  “Itsy bitsy, teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini” of 1960? 

Occasionally the words are written separately but on their own are meaningless such as pell mell.