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Pleonasm can serve as a redundancy check; if a word is unknown, misunderstood, misheard, or if the medium of communication is poor—a static-filled radio transmission or sloppy handwriting—pleonastic phrases can help ensure that the meaning is communicated even if some of the words are lost.
Polysemy – the capacity of a word or phrase to render more than one meaning. Polysyndeton – the repeated use of conjunctions within a sentence, particularly where they do not necessarily have to be used. Postmodernism – a field of inquiry concerned with the ideological underpinnings of commonly held assumptions.
Punch, 25 February 1914.The cartoon is a pun on the word "Jamaica", which pronunciation [dʒəˈmeɪkə] is a homonym to the clipped form of "Did you make her?". [1] [2]A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. [3]
Oxymorons are words that communicate contradictions. An oxymoron (plurals: oxymorons and oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposite meanings within a word or in a phrase that is a self-contradiction. As a rhetorical device, an oxymoron illustrates a point to communicate and reveal a paradox.
The post 30 Fancy Words That Will Make You Sound Smarter appeared first on Reader's Digest. With these fancy words, you can take your vocabulary to a whole new level and impress everyone.
A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...
The sharp surge of N-word usage on X likely didn't make the platform feel any safer to Black users, either. What remains true, though: Black Twitter has forged an unbreakable community.
Words with specific American meanings that have different meanings in British English and/or additional meanings common to both dialects (e.g., pants, crib) are to be found at List of words having different meanings in British and American English. When such words are herein used or referenced, they are marked with the flag [DM] (different ...