You said you loved me, or were you just being kind?

[venta]

On my desk at work, I have a calendar of Lost Language. Technically, for long and boring reasons, it's a 2011 calendar, which means I'm in danger of thinking today is Tuesday.

Every so often, the word of the day turns out to be a word I use all the time. Well, fair enough, I have a somewhat rapacious and eclectic approach to words. Gems from this week include "ruriculous", "gloppened" and "sevous" (none of which I knew).

Today's word (which is actually a phrase):

To be in a huff: to have a fit of petulance or offended dignity.

Is there any meaningful sense in which that particular bit of language is lost?

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't know "zeugma", so I that can be my word of the day instead.

And I now also know (courtsey of Wikipedia) that "he hastened to put out the cat, the wine, his cigar and the lamps" is a prozeugma.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I never covered zeugma properly in MRIWFSORD, because it's kind of dull. Syllepsis is good though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

MRIWFSORD

Mo's Really Informative Words For Sort-Of Rhetorical Devices?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, having followed the link I now know what it stands for.

I think syllepsis is what I'd inferred zeugma to be. Do you have a zeugmatic, non-sylleptical example to hand?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Zeugma is just where one word governs two or more parts of the sentence, a very simple eg being "I like eating lunch and picking flowers" where "like" governs both activities. Or "We climbed Great Gable and descended Kirk Fell", where "we" governs both verb clauses.

So it's only really interesting when people do clever things with it – syllepsis is the clever thing where the governing word is used in two different meanings re the two parts that it works with.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh. Yes! You're right. It's quite dull and prosaic :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I didn't know zeugma was a word except there are two Turkish restaurants with the same owner on London Road and they are called Zeugma and Zeugma Iki (iki means 2). Zeugma Iki is more of a cafe that does takeaway.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I hope zeugma doesn't mean something different in Turkish, because I like the idea of someone naming restuarants after obscure rhetorical devices :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

It's sort of a pun. There is a town called Zeugma where there were beautiful mosaics, one of which is copied on the front of the restaurant: http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/acar/acar8-29-00.asp but the word zeugma also means bond so it's a play on words for having two of them.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm glad Iki does mean something different in Turkish.

Ickiness and food = not good combo.