Tag Archives: term of art

Term of Art: Bureaucracy

Posted on November 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“bureaucracy: (deriv. Fr., office + Gk., rule) Originally a semi-ironic term analogous to democracy or aristocracy, originating in 18th-century France for officials given titles of nobility. Under Napoleon (1804-1815) the country was run by units of centralized administration known as bureau. The term now describes the rule of a body of high officials or the caste of officials itself, usually with connotations of lack of initiative and too strict an adherence to rigid rules.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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Term of Art: Voice

Posted on November 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Voice: The attribute of a verb that indicates whether its subject is active (Janet played the guitar) or passive (The guitar was played by Janet).”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: Verbal

Posted on November 4, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Verbal: A verb form that functions in a sentence as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb rather than as a principal verb. Thinking can be fun. An embroidered handkerchief. (See also gerund, infinitive, and participle.)”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: Bilateral Agreement

Posted on November 4, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Bilateral agreement: Agreement to which there are two parties as opposed to a multilateral agreement involving several parties.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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Term of Art: Brains Trust

Posted on November 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Brains Trust: Nickname given to a group of economists and businessmen in the USA who acted as advisers to Pres. Roosevelt (1882-1945) in formulating the New Deal policy. The term has since been widely used to denote bodies of experts believed to have influence on government policy. In the UK the term ‘brains trust’ was extended to include groups of experts assembled to answer questions put to them by the public, especially the BBC’s wartime panel of experts who broadcast on the wireless.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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Term of Art: Verb

Posted on October 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Verb: A word or group of words that expresses the action or indicates the state of being of the subject. Verbs activate sentences.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: Homonymy

Posted on October 29, 2020 | Leave a comment

“homonymy: The relation between words whose forms are the same but whose meanings are different and cannot be connected: e.g. between pen ‘writing instrument’ and pen ‘enclosure.’ Homonyms are words related in this way.

Distinguished from polysemy in that the meaning of one homonym is not seen as deriving from that of the other: in that light, the words are different lexical units. Homonymy can also be distinguished from cases of conversion: e.g. that of either of the nouns ‘pen’ into a corresponding verb. Also from syncretism, which is between inflections of the same lexical unit. The term may be restricted further to homonymy, as in this example, both in the sounds of words and in their spelling: hence the more specific homograph, homophone.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

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Term of Art: Transitive Verb

Posted on October 29, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Transitive Verb: A verb that requires a direct object to complete its meaning: They washed their new car. An intransitive verb does not require an object to complete its meaning: The audience laughed. Many verbs can be both: The wind blew furiously. My car blew a gasket.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: Bond

Posted on October 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

“bond: Binding agreement, used as a means of compulsion as well as security; for example, to enforce a commercial contract or to ensure good behavior. Bonds generally have two sections: the bond proper and the condition which, if ignored, cause a sum of money, specified in the bond proper, to be paid as forfeit.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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Term of Art: Transition

Posted on October 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Transition: A word or group of words that aids coherence by showing the connections between ideas. William Carlos Williams was influenced by the poetry or Walt Whitman. Moreover, Williams’s emphasis on the present and the and the immediacy of the ordinary represented a rejection of the poetic stance of his contemporary T.S. Eliot. In addition, Williams’s poetry….”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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