Friday, March 01, 2024

Words of the Month (March 2024)

1. Naufragous has been defined as "causing shipwreck." See https://www.wordnik.com/words/naufragous

The word reminds me of 1 Timothy 1:19-ἔχων πίστιν καὶ ἀγαθὴν συνείδησιν, ἥν τινες ἀπωσάμενοι περὶ τὴν πίστιν ἐναυάγησαν·

2. Prolegomenon-(Oxford Languages)-a critical or discursive introduction to a book. The plural form is prolegomena.

3. Catachresis-From the Oxford English Grammar, page 58:

(Plural catachreses.) The (perceived) erroneous use of a term applied to a concept.

1926 H. W. FOWLER Wrong application of a term, use of words in senses
that do not belong to them.

An old-fashioned term, originally rhetorical. Examples given by Fowler
were the ‘popular’ use of chronic = ‘severe’, asset = ‘advantage’, conservative
(as in conservative estimate) = ‘low’, annex = ‘win’, and mutual =
‘common’.

1589 G. PUTTENHAM Catachresis, or the Figure of abuse . . . if for lacke of
naturall and proper terme or worde we take another, neither naturall nor
proper and do vntruly applie it to the thing which we would seeme to expresse.
 catachrestic, catachrestically.

3 comments:

Nincsnevem said...

#OFFTOPIC#
A good treatise on hell, with papal approval:

https://www.valde.com.br/en/blog/detail/the-hell

...once you start reading, you can't put it down.

Terence said...

Edgar...found this, which might be of use.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-to-deal-with-internet-trolls-4161018

Edgar Foster said...

Thanks, Terence. Sometimes have that problem here.