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Damning with faint praise is an English idiom, expressing oxymoronically that half-hearted or insincere praise may act as oblique criticism or condemnation. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In simpler terms, praise is given, but only given as high as mediocrity, which may be interpreted as passive-aggressive .
A disfluence or nonfluence is a non-pathological hesitance when speaking, the use of fillers (“like” or “uh”), or the repetition of a word or phrase. This needs to be distinguished from a fluency disorder like stuttering with an interruption of fluency of speech, accompanied by "excessive tension, speaking avoidance, struggle behaviors, and secondary mannerism".
This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form. The correspondence is semantic—in most cases these words are not cognates, but in some cases they are doublets, i.e., ultimately derived from the same root, generally Proto-Indo-European, as in cow and beef, both ultimately from PIE *gʷōus.
The stress placed on words within sentences is called sentence stress or prosodic stress. That is one of the three components of prosody , along with rhythm and intonation . It includes phrasal stress (the default emphasis of certain words within phrases or clauses ), and contrastive stress (used to highlight an item, a word or part of a word ...
It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which includes all other factors that allow one to use one's language in practice. In approaches to linguistics which adopt this distinction, competence would normally be considered responsible for the fact that "I like ice cream" is a possible sentence of English , the particular proposition ...
Although there are no widely agreed-upon definitions or measures of language fluency, [3] [5] [6] someone is typically said to be fluent if their use of the language appears fluid, or natural, coherent, and easy as opposed to slow, halting use. [5] In other words, fluency is often described as the ability to produce language on demand and be ...
Fluency may be developed by selecting a slow rate of speech, and making use of short phrases and sentences. With success, the speed may be increased until a natural rate of smooth speech is achieved. [9] Additionally, punishment for incorrect speech production should be eliminated, and a permissive speaking environment encouraged.
Speakers vary their speed of speaking according to contextual and physical factors. A typical speaking rate for English is 4 syllables per second, [5] but in different emotional or social contexts the rate may vary, one study reporting a range between 3.3 and 5.9 syl/sec, [6] Another study found significant differences in speaking rate between story-telling and taking part in an interview.