Tag Archives: term of art

Term of Art: Argument

Posted on July 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

“To argue is to produce considerations designed to support a conclusion. An argument is either the process of doing this (in which sense an argument may be heated or protracted) or the product, i.e., the set of propositions adduced (the premises), the pattern of inference, and the conclusion reached. An argument may be deductively valid, in which case the conclusion follows from the premises, or it may be persuasive in other ways. Logic is the study of valid and invalid forms of argument.”

Excerpted from: Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , , ,

Term of Art: Diction

Posted on July 24, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Choice of words with respect to clarity, variety, taste, etc.; aptness of vocabulary and phrasing; correctness of pronunciation; enunciation. Adjective: dictional; adverb: dictionally.

‘It is destructive enough to the novel’s texture to hear this “historical” Arthur speak in the diction of a mod labor candidate or an American president standing for re-election.'”

Alan Cheuse, The New York Times

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990. 

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , ,

Term of Art: Metonymy

Posted on July 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

“The figurative or symbolic use of the name of one thing for that of another with which it is associated, or of an attribute for the whole, e.g., ‘brass’ for military officers. Adjective: metonymic, metonymical; adverb: metonymically; noun: metonym.

‘A full set would also have included the brazen Perelman pun (‘My choler wilted’ for ‘My anger subsided’)…the Perelman micro-metonymy (‘Hanna listened to the veins throbbing in my temple’ for ‘I was speechless with anger at Hanna’) and the Perelman extrapolation of cliché into metaphor (‘The whole aviary in my head burst into song’ for ‘I was bird-brained’).’” Tom Wolfe, The New York Times

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

Term of Art: Adaptation

Posted on July 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Broadly speaking, the recasting of a work to fit another, such as the recasting of novels and plays as film or television scripts. For example, Stephen Hero, A Passage to India, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Les Liaisons dangereuses as stage plays; The Forsythe Saga, Daniel Deronda, War and Peace, Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel in the Crown as television dramas. Sometimes a cycle or sequence is adapted: for instance, the dramatization of some of the Canterbury Tales as a musical comedy (1967). Short stories and poems are often equally suitable.

As an extension there are works like the Peyton Place and Colditz of which episodes continued to be presented long after the original stories had been used up.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

Term of Art: Blank Verse

Posted on July 13, 2018 | Leave a comment

“In prosody, unrhymed verse. In English, the term usually means unrhymed iambic pentameter. In classical prosody, rhyme was not used at all; with the introduction of rhyme in the Middle Ages, blank verse disappeared. It was reintroduced in the 16th century and in England became the standard medium of dramatic poetry and frequently of epic poetry. Shakespeare’s plays, for example, are written mostly in blank verse.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

Term of Art: Gerund

Posted on July 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A traditional term for a VERBAL NOUN, in English a word ending in –ing: visiting in They appreciate my visiting their parents regularly. Like a noun, it can be introduced by the genitive my (compare I visit their parents). Some object to the non-genitive usage and avoid at least for names and pronouns, preferring They appreciate Bill’s visiting their parents to They appreciate Bill visiting their parents and They appreciate my visiting their parents to They appreciate me visiting their parents.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

William Empson on Ambiguity

Posted on July 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

“The intentional or unintentional expression of a word or idea that implies more than one meaning and usually leaves uncertainty in the reader. William Empson, in his Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), outlined and defined seven different kinds of verbal nuance. He maintained that language functioning with artistic complexity connotes as much and often more than it denotes.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

Term of Art: Deus ex Machina

Posted on June 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

“(Latin ‘god out of the machine’) In Greek drama a god was lowered out onto the stage by a mechane so that he could get the hero out of difficulties and untangle the plot. Euripides used it a good deal. Sophocles and Aeschylus avoided it. Bertolt Brecht parodied the abuse of the device at the end of his Threepenny Opera. Today this phrase is applied to any unanticipated intervener who resolves a difficult situation, in any literary genre.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

Anecdote

Posted on June 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A brief, presumably interesting report of an experience or incident, especially a humorous account reflecting human foibles; confidential tale or piece of gossip, or an unknown biographical or historical particular; digressive episode. Adj. anecdotal; n anecdotist, anecdotalist.

‘He joked with Baitsell about the formalities, laughed at the red ribbons attached to the will, told a couple of anecdotes about old Newport and Harry Lehr’s will, and finally signed his name in a great, flourishing hand.’” Louis Auchincloss, Powers of Attorney

 Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

A.J. Liebling on the Man-Bites-Dog Story

Posted on June 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A newspaper story having a curious human-interest, often humorous flavor, such as one profiling a person with a hobby that would seem to be a role reversal.

‘The defendant was what the N-boys like to call a Scion (of a wealthy family of former oleomargarine manufacturers, in this instance), which, in the same idiom, qualified him as a Socialite. Scions are seldom accused of procuring, which gave the case a bit of the man-bites-dog-aspect that the schools of journalism talk about.'”

A.J. Liebling, The Press

Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,