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Dual (abbreviated DU) is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities (objects or persons) identified by the noun or pronoun acting as a single unit or in unison. Verbs can also have dual agreement ...
Generally, words coming from French often retain a higher register than words of Old English origin, and they are considered by some to be more posh, elaborate, sophisticated, or pretentious. However, there are exceptions: weep, groom and stone (from Old English) occupy a slightly higher register than cry, brush and rock (from French).
A double entendre[note 1] (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, one of which is typically obvious, and the other often conveys a message that would be too socially unacceptable, or offensive to state directly. [2][3] A double entendre may exploit puns or word ...
Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements. The word "number" is also used in linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc.
Given that the kinship between words that have the same root and the same meaning is fairly obvious, the term is mostly used to characterize pairs of words that have diverged at least somewhat in meaning. [1] For example, English pyre and fire are doublets with merely associated meanings despite both descending ultimately from the same Proto ...
For example, the cenemes of spoken language are phonemes, while the pleremes are morphemes or words; the cenemes of alphabetic writing are the letters and the pleremes are the words. [6] Sign languages may have less double articulation because more gestures are possible than sound and able to convey more meaning without double articulation. [7]
Abbreviations beginning with N- (generalized glossing prefix for non-, in-, un-) are not listed separately unless they have alternative forms that are included. For example, NPSTnon-past is not listed, as it is composable from N-non- + PSTpast. This convention is grounded in the Leipzig Glossing Rules. [ 2 ]
Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs and "servicing the target" for bombing), [1] in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable. It may also refer to intentional ambiguity ...