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]

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 :)