CIRCUMLOCUTION

'Circumlocution' is a figure of speech where the meaning of a word or phrase is indirectly expressed through several or many words. It may be used when defining a term, for example: "scissors" = "a thing you use to cut other things". Circumlocution is often helpful while learning a new language, when one does not know the word for a particular thing. In the constructed language Basic English this is used to decrease the size of the necessary vocabulary.
Circumlocution also means replacing a word with another (or others), often in order to sound more polite, to avoid a controversial or trademarked term or to be ironic. In this context, see also euphemism.
Sometimes, circumlocution is used to insert a controversial or trademarked name into a well-known phrase for comic effect, for example, "I believe in calling a spade a Spear and Jackson 16B."
Charles Dickens dedicated Chapter 10 of his novel Little Dorrit to writing about “The Circumlocution Office”. This is a reference to the inefficiencies within the British Government in the early 1800s.
Circumlocution can also be associated with types of Aphasia including Anomic aphasia, Wernicke's aphasia and Conduction aphasia.

Contents

See also

Reference

External links

See also

★ Analytic language

★ Auxiliary verb

★ Compound (linguistics)

★ Inflection

★ Periphrasis

Reference

★ Greek Grammar, , Herbert Weir, Smyth, Harvard University Press, 1920, ISBN 0-674-36250-0

External links

★ Circumlocution in figures of speech