Syllepsis: 2 examples from popular music
All I do is keep the beat and bad company—Mark Knopfler This is an a example of syllepsis, a fun rhetorical device...
(Little Squeak’s) Word of the Day: Car
Definition: A road vehicle, typically with four wheels powered by an internal-combustion engine and able to carry a small number of people. Using Little Squeak logic, everything from a Lamborghini to Lego on wheels is a ‘car’. And they are all awesome. (Vroom, vroom!) The word ‘car’ is thought to be based on the Gaulish word [...]
Word of the Day: Jumentous
Definition: Smelling of horse urine—a wonderfully specific word that lends itself to many uses.
Word of the Day: Cenatory
Definition: Pertaining to dinner. All the official definitions of this word talk about Romans wearing cenatory garments. If you wanted to tell someone else about what Romans wore when they ate dinner, it's pronounced 'se-na-tur-e' In fact, the etymology of the word is ... Oh, wait, did someone say 'dinner'?
Word of the Day: Flabelliform
Definition: Shaped like a fan. Today, a tin of beetroot decided to leap out of my hands and make a flabelliform stain on my white dress*. I knew I hated the stuff. ** * This didn't actually happen because I don't own a white dress. But if I did, I'm sure I would spill beetroot on [...]
Word of the Day: Bathos
Definition: In a literary work—an abrupt descent from the sublime or high-minded to the ridiculous. Not to be confused with 'pathos'. Pathos is a rhetorical technique that appeals to an audience's emotions—such as sympathy or sorrow. Bathos is most often used as comic relief. Monty Python and the Holy Grail has some good examples, including:
Word of the Day: Horripilation
Definition: Goosebumps; an erection of hairs on the skin due to cold, fear or excitement I experience horripilation every time I see a cockroach (alive or dead). Also, when I hear a really good song (for the first time or hundredth).
Word of the Day: Tintinnabulate
Definition: Make a light, clear ringing sound; tinkle It was Christmas Eve and Santa was grumpy. People carried on about him going down chimneys as though they didn't know he was claustrophobic. When he'd told Mrs Claus, she told him to stop complaining and get into the Christmas spirit. So he did. Lots of different Christmas spirits. Very [...]
Word of the Day: Fritinancy
Definition: The sound—particularly chirping—that insects make. Hot summer days are filled with the fritinancy of cicadas in chorus. This word is a rare beast. An edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1898 spelled it 'fritiniency'—but when spotted in the wild these days, it is more often spelled as 'fritinancy'.
Word of the Day: Preantepenultimate
A word constructed nearly entirely from affixes, all from Latin: Pre (meaning 'before'), ante (meaning 'before'), pen (meaning 'almost'), and ultimate (meaning 'final').