I like to sound pretentious - Words of the day - The Bear and Badger

igorgetmeabrain

Oh, you mean malapropism!

beano

It was something else I think. Christmas, how many words are there.

igorgetmeabrain

Well, there's also spoonerism, which is slightly different. That's more a garbling of words rather than mixing them up with other ones.

beano

No mate.

beano

Damn, I think it was some cross posting humor. I just went back to the The Great 'How Do Pineapples Grow and Ripen' Debate of the 26th July and can't find it.

adkm1979

prolepsis

PRONUNCIATION:
(pro-LEP-sis)

MEANING:
noun:
1. The use of a descriptive word in anticipation of the result. Example: The word hot in hot water heater.
2. The anticipation and answering of an objection or argument before it's raised. Also known as prebuttal.
3. The representation of an event before it actually happened. Example: He lost the game even before the match began.
4. The anachronistic representation of an event before its actual time. Also known as prochronism. Example: A depiction of people talking wirelessly over long distances in 18th century.
5. A literary technique in which the author drops hints of things to come. Also known as foreshadowing.
6. The return of a paroxysm of a periodic disease before its usual time or at progressively shorter intervals.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek prolepsis, from prolambanein (to anticipate), from pro- (before) + lambanein (to take). Earliest documented use: 1450.

USAGE:
"As preservationists and residents threatened with displacement join 're-open Charity' proponents, planners symbolically engage in prolepsis, rhetorically precluding opposing arguments with flash forward of supposedly 'done deals.'"
Anne Lovell; Debating Life After Disaster; Medical Anthropology Quarterly; Jun 2011.

"You have no right to interrupt the council's session, and such a dangerous prolepsis as this will not be allowed to change the debate."
Kim Stanley Robinson; Galileo's Dream; Spectra; 2009.

"The thought threw me into a vernal prolepsis, a mental flash-forward to spring."
Verlyn Klinkenborg; The Farm From Afar; The New York Times; Mar 22, 2013.

Blue Swirl

Animadvert; an advert about animals.

No, not really. Apparently it means 'to pass criticism or censure on; to speak out against'.

adkm1979

I thought it was going to be a .gif banner.

Blue Swirl

Stentor (noun).

- a person with a powerful voice.
- a trumpet shaped single celled animal found in fresh water.

(From the name of a herald in the Trojan War, which goes some way to explaining why the definitions above are so wonderfully different!)

Blue Swirl

Chanticleer - name for a domestic clock, used especially in fairy tales.

Prolix - using too many words
Circumlocution - using too many words

Your challenge for today; use both prolix and circumlocution in the same sentence, whilst preferably engaged in said activity of the employment of far too many words when a slimmer selection of utterances would do in order to convey your intended meaning.

adkm1979

Circumlocution is more often used with the connotation of not just excessive wordage, but talking around the point to such an extent as to never quite get to reaching it.

Prolix is an adjective, circumlocution is a noun. Your definitions imply verbs.

JonB

I think pretentious is misused in the thread title BTW. Nobody wants to sound pretentious, it's more that one sounds pretentious in attempting to sound informed/intellectual.

Blue Swirl

adkm1979 wrote:

Prolix is an adjective, circumlocution is a noun. Your definitions imply verbs.

Well, yes. Ironically, I was trying to define the words without taking up too much space, with the presumption that an interested party would look up the words themselves should they so desire.

JonB wrote:

Nobody wants to sound pretentious

Speak for yourself.

Blue Swirl

Tribology - the study of friction, wear, lubrication, and the design of bearings; the science of interacting surfaces in relative motion.

acemuzzy

Interesting, I've always called that chafeology

Blue Swirl

Chafeologists quite often get into fights with tribologists. But let's not even mention the rubologists.

Blue Swirl

Cachinnate - laugh loudly.

Blue Swirl

Aww yeah, single handedly keeping this thread alive.

sub specie aeternitatis - viewed in relation to the eternal; in a universal perspective: "sub specie aeternitatis the authors have got it about right."

Origin: Latin, literally ‘under the aspect of eternity’.

Blue Swirl

59 bits of slang from the 1920s.

Personally I think barneymugging should make a come back.

Yossarian

I'm not sure how Barney would feel about that.

igorgetmeabrain

Syzygy (si-zi-jee) - The straight line configuration of three celestial bodies (as the sun and earth and moon) in a gravitational system.

igorgetmeabrain

On the origin of 'fuck'

Who wants 'hit-butter' when you could have 'fuck-butter'??

Blue Swirl

Blue Swirl wrote:

Aww yeah, single handedly keeping this thread alive.

Poetaster - a person who writes inferior poetry.

JonB

catachresis: incorrect use of a word or words, as by misapplication of terminology or by strained or mixed metaphor

catechism: a summary of the principles of Christian religion in the form of questions and answers, used for religious instruction

cathect: to invest with mental or emotional energy
cathexis: the process of investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea

diachronic: of or pertaining to the changes in a linguistic system between successive points in time; historical

Novum: a term used by science fiction scholar Darko Suvin and others to describe the scientifically-plausible innovations used by science fiction narratives

obnubilate: to cloud over; becloud; obscure

oneiric: of or pertaining to dreams

physiognomy: the assessment of a person's character or personality from his or her outer appearance, especially the face

propaedeutic: providing preparatory or introductory teaching.

synchronic: having reference to the facts of a linguistic system as it exists at one point in time without reference to its history

Brooks

"cathexis" is a good un.

Blue Swirl

Nice ones, JonB.

I also approve of 'cathexis', may have to make my gamertag 'xXxcathexisxXx pwns'.

JonB

All things that have popped up in my reading. I look them up when I remember to.

Blue Swirl

Good plan. In other news...

divaricate - stretch or spread apart, to diverge widely

Use it to write the classiest "your mum" jokes ever seen.

krs

Snickerdoodle.

AJ

Classier than the Marxist one?

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