Diction Flashcards
active
of an individual’s vocabulary, that part which is actually used.
bowdlerise
to cut or replace with euphemisms anything thought ‘improper’ ; an eponym from Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), editor of the Family Shakespeare
(1818).
coinage
of a word, a neologism or nonce-word ; often used possessively, to
indicate the coiner. Implicitly, new words are ‘struck’ or ‘minted’ rather than ‘made’ or ‘invented’.
creole
(from Spanish criollo, a slave born in slavery ; ultimately probably from Latin creare, to create) a noun and adjective for people, cultures, and languages of mixed European and/or African and/or Amerindian heritage ; of a language the word typically implies ‘formerly a pidgin tongue, now the sole or native language’. It is now sometimes spelled ‘kweyol’.
decorum
(from Latin decorus, seemly) appropriateness, consistency, and civility of register, style, etc. in artistic compositions ; the opposite is indecorum.
demotic
(Greek, ‘popular’) of a word, register, or style, of the common people, often with an implication of vulgarity.
dialect
now usually a regional form of a dominant language, implying different words and/or syntax rather than simply accent.
diction
the choice of words (including the reasons for and consequences of
that choice).
discourse
here, the diction of a particular poem, the relations between the
words it actually uses. (A specialised use of an ambiguous and polysemic term.)
etymology
the derivation and history of a particular word, or the general
study of how words evolve.
Germanic
of languages, belonging to a particular group of Indo-European
languages, including modern German and Dutch, and Old English ; of modern English words, deriving from one of these languages.
idiom
generally, a language or dialect, the tongue and expressions of an area or group ; most specifically, a turn of phrase etc. habitual to native speakers but whose meaning is not readily predictable from the meanings of constituent
words (go get ’em, tiger ; well I never).
lexical set
any set of words specified by a given criterion.
nation language
a politically correct term for Caribbean creoles and/or patois,
usually deployed with ideological purpose (and sometimes adopted in Black American poetics).
neologism
a new word
orthography
conventionally correct or proper spelling, and its study.
passive
of an individual’s vocabulary, the whole range of words that is known.
patois
(? from Old French patoier, to handle roughly) loosely, a dialect ;specifically, West Indian creoles drawing on English, French, or Spanish + African and/or Amerindian languages. It is now sometimes spelled ‘patwa’.
polysemic
of words, having many senses and/or distinct meanings.
portmanteau
a word created by merging two or more existing words.
register
generally, the chosen level or pitch of style + diction + decorum in a
text, assessed as e.g. ‘high’ or ‘demotic’ ; in printing register refers to the exactitude of repositioning the paper when multiple impressions are needed (as for colour + B&W), or both sides of a leaf bear text.
