|
Syntactic Expletive
An expletive is a word or phrase inserted into a sentence that is not needed to express the basic meaning of the sentence. It is regarded as semantically null or a placeholder. Expletives are not insignificant or meaningless in all senses; they may be used to give emphasis or tone, to contribute to the meter in verse, or to indicate tense. The word "expletive" derives from the Latin word : serving to fill out or take up space. In these examples ''in fact'' and ''indeed'' are expletives: :*The teacher was not, in fact, present. :*Indeed, the teacher was absent. In conversation the expressions ''like'' and ''you know'', when they are not meaningful, are expletives. The word ''so'', used as an introductory particle (especially when used in answer to a question), has become a common modern expletive. Oaths or profanities may be expletives, as occurs in William Shakespeare, Shakespeare: :"Yes, ''by Saint Patrick'', but there is, Horatio." :: ''Hamlet,'' act 1, scene 5, line 134 :" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of River Avon, Warwickshire, Avon" or simply "the Bard". His extant works, including William Shakespeare's collaborations, collaborations, consist of some Shakespeare's plays, 39 plays, Shakespeare's sonnets, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays List of translations of works by William Shakespeare, have been translated into every major modern language, living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Caxton
William Caxton () was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into Kingdom of England, England in 1476, and as a Printer (publishing), printer to be the first English retailer of printed books. His parentage and date of birth are not known for certain, but he may have been born between 1415 and 1424, perhaps in the Weald or wood land of Kent, perhaps in Hadlow or Tenterden. In 1438 he was apprenticed to Robert Large, a wealthy London silk Mercery, mercer. Shortly after Large's death, Caxton moved to Bruges, Belgium, a wealthy cultured city in which he was settled by 1450. Successful in business, he became governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London; on his business travels, he observed the new printing industry in Cologne, which led him to start a printing press in Bruges in collaboration with Colard Mansion. When Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV, married the Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgund ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Profanity
Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, is the usage of notionally word taboo, offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion (such as anger, excitement, or surprise), as a grammatical intensifier or emphasis, or to express informality or conversational intimacy. In many formal or polite social situations, it is considered impolite (a violation of social norms), and in some religious groups it is considered a sin. Profanity includes pejorative, slurs, but most profanities are not slurs, and there are many insults that do not use swear words. Swear words can be discussed or even sometimes used for the same purpose without causing offense or being considered impolite if they are obscured (e.g. "fuck" becomes "f***" or "the f-word") or substituted with a minced oath like "flip". Etymology and definitions Profanity may be described as offensive language, dirty words, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning. Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word. For example, in English the root ''catch'' and the suffix ''-ing'' are both morphemes; ''catch'' may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with ''-ing'' to form the new word ''catching''. Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech, and how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number, tense, and aspect. Concepts such as productivity are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts, which evolves over the history of a language. The basic fields of ling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Filler (linguistics)
In linguistics, a filler, filled pause, hesitation marker or planner (sometimes called crutches) is a sound or word that participants in a conversation use to signal that they are pausing to think but are not finished speaking.Juan, Stephen (2010).Why do we say 'um', 'er', or 'ah' when we hesitate in speaking? These are not to be confused with placeholder names, such as ''thingamajig''. Fillers fall into the category of formulaic language, and different languages have different characteristic filler sounds. The term filler also has a separate use in the syntactic description of wh-movement constructions (see below). Usage Every conversation involves turn-taking, which means that whenever someone wants to speak and hears a pause, they do so. Pauses are commonly used to indicate that someone's turn has ended, which can create confusion when someone has not finished a thought but has paused to form a thought; in order to prevent this confusion, they will use a filler word such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expletive Infixation
Expletive infixation is a process by which an expletive or profanity is inserted into a word, usually for intensification. It is similar to tmesis, but not all instances are covered by the usual definition of ''tmesis'' because the words are not necessarily compounds. The most commonly inserted English expletives are adjectival: either participles (''fucking'', ''mother-fucking'', ''freaking'', ''blooming'', ''bleeding'', '' damned'', ''wretched'') or adjectives (''bloody''). Rules of formation in English Judgments of which formations of expletive infixation are acceptable are remarkably consistent. This suggests that the rules for the placement of the expletive are not arbitrary, but instead derive from fundamental aspects of English phonology. A simple rule is that the insertion occurs at a syllable boundary, usually just before the primary stressed syllable. Thus, one hears ''abso-fuckin'-lutely'' rather than *''ab-fuckin'-solutely''. This rule is insufficient to descri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expletive Deleted
The phrase expletive deleted indicates that profanity has been censored from a text by the author or by a subsequent censor, usually appearing in place of the profanity. The phrase has been used for this purpose since at least the 1930s, but became more widely used in the United States after the Watergate scandal. History Compelled by a subpoena to provide the contents of the White House taping system to the House Judiciary Committee in April 1974, President Richard Nixon ordered transcripts of the tapes to be prepared. After a cursory inspection of the transcripts, Nixon, shocked at viewing several profanity-laced discussions amongst the White House's inner-circle, ordered that every use of profanity be replaced by " XPLETIVE DELETED. The transcripts were published in ''The New York Times'' and elicited shock in much of the country, given Nixon's generally staid public image and the fact that contemporary media coverage of politicians did not usually report candidates' profanit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expletive Attributive
An expletive attributive is an adjective or adverb (or adjectival or adverbial phrase) that does not contribute to the meaning of a sentence, but is used to intensify its emotional force. Often such words or phrases are regarded as profanity or "bad language", though there are also inoffensive expletive attributives. The word is derived from the Latin verb , meaning "to fill", and it was originally introduced into English in the 17th century for various kinds of padding. Etymology ''Expletive'' comes from the Latin verb , meaning "to fill", via , "filling out". It was introduced into English in the 17th century for various kinds of padding—the padding out of a book with peripheral material, the addition of syllables to a line of poetry for metrical purposes, and so forth. The use of ''expletive'' for such a meaning is now rare. Rather, ''expletive'' is a linguistics term for a meaningless word filling a syntactic vacancy. Outside linguistics, the word is commonly used to r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dummy Pronoun
A dummy pronoun, also known as an expletive pronoun, is a deictic pronoun that fulfills a syntactical requirement without providing a contextually explicit meaning of its referent. As such, it is an example of exophora. A dummy pronoun is used when a particular verb argument (or preposition) is nonexistent, but when a reference to the argument (a pronoun) is nevertheless syntactically required. This is commonly the case if the verb is an impersonal verb, but it could also be that the argument is unknown, irrelevant, already understood, or otherwise taboo (as in naming taboo). For example, in the phrase " is obvious that the violence will continue", the term 'it' is a dummy pronoun, not referring to any agent. Unlike a regular pronoun of English, it cannot be replaced by any noun phrase. The term 'dummy pronoun' refers to the function of a word in a particular sentence, not a property of individual words. For example, 'it' in the example from the previous paragraph is a d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Legend
The ''Golden Legend'' ( or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of 153 hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in Europe during the Late Middle Ages. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary Maddocks, "Pictures for aristocrats: the manuscripts of the ''Légende dorée'', in Margaret M. Manion, Bernard James Muir, eds. ''Medieval texts and images: studies of manuscripts from the Middle Ages'' 1991:2; a study of the systemization of the Latin manuscripts of the ''Legenda aurea'' is B. Fleith, "Le classement des quelque 1000 manuscrits de la Legenda aurea latine en vue de l'éstablissement d'une histoire de la tradition" in Brenda Dunn-Lardeau, ed. ''Legenda Aurea: sept siècles de diffusion'', 1986:19–24 It was probably compiled around 1259 to 1266, although the text was added to over the centuries. Initially entitled ''Legenda sanctorum'' (''Readings of the Saints''), it gained its popularity under the title by which it is best ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Profanity
Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, is the usage of notionally word taboo, offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion (such as anger, excitement, or surprise), as a grammatical intensifier or emphasis, or to express informality or conversational intimacy. In many formal or polite social situations, it is considered impolite (a violation of social norms), and in some religious groups it is considered a sin. Profanity includes pejorative, slurs, but most profanities are not slurs, and there are many insults that do not use swear words. Swear words can be discussed or even sometimes used for the same purpose without causing offense or being considered impolite if they are obscured (e.g. "fuck" becomes "f***" or "the f-word") or substituted with a minced oath like "flip". Etymology and definitions Profanity may be described as offensive language, dirty words, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with the High Middle Ages, High and Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English literary variety broke down and writing in English became fragmented and localized and was, for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the movabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
