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Elegant Variation
Elegant variation is a writer's substitution of "one word for another for the sake of variety". The term was introduced in 1906 by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler in ''The King's English''. In their meaning of the term, they focus particularly on instances when the word being avoided is a noun or its pronoun. Pronouns are themselves variations intended to avoid awkward repetition, and variations are so often necessary, that they should be used only when needed. The Fowlers recommend that "variations should take place only when there is some awkwardness, such as ambiguity or noticeable monotony, in the word avoided". History Henry Fowler's later '' Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', published in 1926, keeps the same definition, but more explicitly cautions against overuse of variations or synonyms by writers who are "intent on expressing themselves prettily", rather than "conveying their meaning clearly", adding that "there are few literary faults so prevalent." Fowler then qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Watson Fowler
Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 – 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language. He is notable for both ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' and his work on the ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'', and was described by ''The Times'' as "a lexicographical genius". After an Oxford education, Fowler was a schoolmaster until his middle age and then worked in London as a freelance writer and journalist, but was not very successful. In partnership with his brother Francis, beginning in 1906, he began publishing seminal grammar, style and lexicography books. After his brother's death in 1918, he completed the works on which they had collaborated and edited additional works. Biography Youth and studies Fowler was born on 10 March 1858 in Tonbridge, Kent. His parents, the Rev. Robert Fowler and his wife Caroline, ''née'' Watson, were originally from Devon. Robert Fowler was a Cambridge graduate, clergyman and scho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turkey City Lexicon
Turkey City Writer's Workshop is a peer-to-peer, professional science fiction writer's workshop in Texas. Founded in 1973 and still ongoing today, it was consciously modeled after the east coast Milford Writer's Workshop.The Turkey City Writer's Workshop Homepage The workshop "was a cradle of cyberpunk" where many of the practitioners of what would become cyberpunk first met. Founding members of the group included , , |
Verbosity
Verbosity or verboseness is speech or writing that uses more words than necessary. The opposite of verbosity is plain language. Some teachers, including the author of ''The Elements of Style'', warn against verbosity; similarly Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway, among others, famously avoid it. Synonyms include wordiness, verbiage, prolixity, grandiloquence, garrulousness, expatiation, logorrhea, sesquipedalianism, and overwriting. Etymology and synonyms The word ''verbosity'' comes from Latin ''verbosus'', "wordy". There are many other English words that also refer to the use of excessive words. ''Prolixity'' comes from Latin ''prolixus'', "extended". ''Prolixity'' can also be used to refer to the length of a monologue or speech, especially a formal address such as a lawyer's oral argument. ''Grandiloquence'' is complex speech or writing judged to be pompous or bombastic diction. It is a combination of the Latin words ''grandis'' ("great") and ''loqui'' ("to speak"). ''Logorrhe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thesaurus
A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym dictionaries have a long history. The word 'thesaurus' was used in 1852 by Peter Mark Roget for his ''Roget's Thesaurus''. While some thesauri, such as ''Roget's Thesaurus'', group words in a hierarchical hypernymic taxonomy of concepts, others are organized alphabetically or in some other way. Most thesauri do not include definitions, but many dictionaries include listings of synonyms. Some thesauri and dictionary synonym notes characterize the distinctions between similar words, with notes on their "connotations and varying shades of meaning".''American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', 5th edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2011, , p. xxvii Some synonym dictionaries are primarily concerned with differentiating synonyms by mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Purple Prose
In literary criticism, purple prose is overly ornate prose text that may disrupt a narrative flow by drawing undesirable attention to its own extravagant style of writing, thereby diminishing the appreciation of the prose overall. Purple prose is characterized by the excessive use of adjectives, adverbs, and metaphors. When it is limited to certain passages, they may be termed purple patches or purple passages, standing out from the rest of the work. Purple prose is criticized for desaturating the meaning in an author's text by overusing melodramatic and fanciful descriptions. As there is no precise rule or absolute definition of what constitutes purple prose, deciding if a text, passage, or complete work has fallen victim is a somewhat subjective decision. According to Paul West, "It takes a certain amount of sass to speak up for prose that's rich, succulent and full of novelty. Purple is immoral, undemocratic and insincere; at best artsy, at worst the exterminating angel of de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleonasm
Pleonasm (; , ) is redundancy in linguistic expression, such as "black darkness" or "burning fire". It is a manifestation of tautology by traditional rhetorical criteria and might be considered a fault of style. Pleonasm may also be used for emphasis, or because the phrase has become established in a certain form. Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in literature. Usage Most often, ''pleonasm'' is understood to mean a word or phrase which is useless, clichéd, or repetitive, but a pleonasm can also be simply an unremarkable use of idiom. It can aid in achieving a specific linguistic effect, be it social, poetic or literary. Pleonasm sometimes serves the same function as rhetorical repetition—it can be used to reinforce an idea, contention or question, rendering writing clearer and easier to understand. Pleonasm can serve as a redundancy check; if a word is unknown, misunderstood, misheard, or if the medium of communication is poor—a wireless telephone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenning
A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech in the type of circumlocution, a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English poetry. They continued to be a feature of Icelandic poetry (including ''rímur'') for centuries, together with the closely related heiti. A kenning has two parts: a base-word (also known as a head-word) and a determinant. For example, the base-word of the kenning "íss rauðra randa" ('icicle of red shields' WORD Einarr Skúlason: ''Øxarflokkr'' 9) is ''íss'' ('ice, icicle') and the determinant is ''rǫnd'' ('rim, shield-rim, shield'). The thing, person, place or being to which the kenning refers is known as its referent (in this case a sword). Although kennings are sometimes hyphenated in English translation, Old Norse poetry did not require kennings to be in normal word order, nor do the parts of the kenning need to be side-by-side. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonomasia
In rhetoric, antonomasia is a kind of metonymy in which an epithet or phrase takes the place of a proper name, such as "the little corporal" for Napoleon I; or, conversely, the use of a proper name as an archetypal name, to express a generic idea. A frequent instance of antonomasia in the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance was the use of the term "the Philosopher" to refer to Aristotle. A more recent example of the other form of antonomasia (usage of archetypes) was the use of "Solons" for "the legislators" in 1930s journalism, after the semi-legendary Solon, lawgiver of Athens. Stylistically, such epithets may be used for elegant variation to reduce repetition of names in phrases. The word comes from the Greek , ''antonomasia'', itself from the verb , ''antonomazein'' 'to name differently'. Opposite examples See "archetypal name" for examples of the opposite kind of antonomasia. One common example in French is the word for ''fox:'' the Latin-derived french: goupil was re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website since 19 December 1995, and is often the only French newspaper easily obtainable in non-French-speaking countries. It is considered one of the French newspapers of record, along with '' Libération'', and ''Le Figaro''. It should not be confused with the monthly publication '' Le Monde diplomatique'', of which ''Le Monde'' has 51% ownership, but which is editorially independent. A Reuters Institute poll in 2021 in France found that "''Le Monde'' is the most trusted national newspaper". ''Le Monde'' was founded by Hubert Beuve-Méry at the request of Charles de Gaulle (as Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic) on 19 December 1944, shortly after the Liberation of Paris, and published continuously since its first edit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmonde Charles-Roux
Edmonde Charles-Roux (17 April 1920 – 20 January 2016) was a French writer. Early life Charles-Roux was born in 1920 at Neuilly-sur-Seine, the daughter of Francois Charles-Roux, the former French ambassador to Czechoslovakia, a member of the Institut de France and the last chairman of the Suez Canal Company. Her paternal grandfather, Jules Charles-Roux, was a businessman and politician. World War II Charles-Roux was a volunteer nurse in World War II, at first in a French Foreign Legion unit, the 11th infantry regiment abroad. She was wounded at Verdun while bringing aid to a legionnaire. Then she joined the Resistance, again as a nurse. After the landings in Provence, she was attached to the 5th Armored Division, where she performed as a nurse but also as a divisional social assistant. She also served in the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (1er REC) and the Mechanized Regiment of the Foreign Legion (RMLE). Decorated with the Croix de Guerre, she was made Chevalier de la L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaston Defferre
Gaston Defferre (14 September 1910 – 7 May 1986) was a French Socialist politician. He served as mayor of Marseille for 33 years until his death in 1986. He was minister for overseas territories in Guy Mollet’s socialist government in 1956–1957. His main achievement was to establish the framework used to grant independence to France’s African territories. As the Socialist candidate for president in 1969, he received only 5 percent of the vote. He was much more successful in promoting François Mitterrand as leader of the Socialist Party (''Parti Socialiste''; PS) in 1971. He held a series of ministerial portfolios after the Socialist victory in 1981, especially as minister of state for the interior and decentralization. Biography A lawyer and member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), Defferre was involved in the Brutus Network, a Resistance Socialist group, during World War II. A long-standing member of the National Assembly (1945–1958, 1962 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penn State University Press
The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, was established in 1956 and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State University and is a division of the Penn State University Library system. Penn State University Press publishes books and journals of interest to scholars and general audiences. As a part of a land-grant university with a mandate to serve the citizens of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it also specializes in works about Penn State University, Pennsylvania, and the mid-Atlantic region. The areas of scholarship the Press is best known for are art history, medieval studies, Latin American studies, rhetoric and communication, religious studies, and Graphic Medicine. In 2016 the Press launched PSU Press Unlocked, an open access platform featuring over 70 books and journals. The Press acquired academic publisher Eisenbrauns, which specializes in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
