Thursday's - Word of the Week - Page 3

GeoffC · 02-13-2009, 12:09 PM

One postscript pica is equal to 4.23333333 millimeters, but I suspect that is not what you are looking for, unless one is prepared to accept the ravenous appetite of the pages in a book for a veritable cornocopia of pica amongst the non-nutritious words written by a crazy fellow on the subject of dogs' penchant for cat candy that is especially true in the winter when said candy is a frozen delicacy; or so I am informed.

Wetdogeared · 02-13-2009, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeoffC

One postscript pica is equal to 4.23333333 millimeters, but I suspect that is not what you are looking for, unless one is prepared to accept the ravenous appetite of the pages in a book for a veritable cornocopia of pica amongst the non-nutritious words written by a crazy fellow on the subject of dogs' penchant for cat candy that is especially true in the winter when said candy is a frozen delicacy; or so I am informed.

Well informed.

LazyScot · 02-19-2009, 06:37 AM

For Thursday 19th feb, how about logorrhoea.

And a (possibly in-accurate) use of the word:

Quote:

It has been noted that certain topics on MobileRead have induced near terminal cases of logorrhoea.

GeoffC · 02-19-2009, 08:52 AM

I can't possibly think of anyone of whom I could accuse of being logorrheoic ....

lilac_jive · 02-19-2009, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LazyScot

For Thursday 19th feb, how about logorrhoea.

And a (possibly in-accurate) use of the word:

I'm not sure what it means, but it has something to do with running...

desertgrandma · 02-19-2009, 12:34 PM

From dictionary.com

Logorrhoea
Logorrhoea or logorrhea (Greek λογορροια, logorrhia, “word-flux”) is defined as an “excessive flow of words” and, when used medically, refers to incoherent talkativeness occurring in certain kinds of mental illness, such as mania. Logomania is the medical condition and mania with underlying symptom logorrhoea. The spoken form of logorrhoea (in the non-medical sense) is a kind of verbosity which uses superfluous (or fancy) words to disguise an otherwise useless message as useful or intellectual, and is commonly known as “verbal diarrhea” or “diarrhea of the mouth”.
Logorrhoea as a description of rhetoric
The word logorrhoea is often used pejoratively to describe prose which is highly abstract, and, consequently, contains little concrete language. Since abstract writing is hard to visualize, it often seems as though it makes no sense, and that all the words are excessive. Writers in academic fields which concern themselves mostly with the abstract, such as philosophy and (especially) postmodernism, often fail to include extensive concrete examples of their ideas; so an examination (superficial or otherwise, according to various points of view) of their work might lead one to believe that it is all nonsense, hence the pejorative epithet “pomobabble” (a neologism inspired from postmodern babble) and "archibabble" (another neologism, this one meaning "architect babble").

The widespread expectation that scholarly works in these fields will look at first glance like nonsense is the source of humor that pokes fun at these fields by comparing actual nonsense with real academic writing. (Several computer programs have been made that can generate texts resembling the styles of these fields but which are actually nonsensical.) In an attempt to prove this lack of rigour, physics professor Alan Sokal wrote a nonsensical essay, and had it published in a respected journal (Social Text) as a practical joke. The journal kept defending it as a genuine article even after its author rebuked it publicly in a subsequent article in another academic journal. (See Sokal Affair).

Logorrhoea can also be used as a form of euphemism, to disguise unpleasant facts and ideas.

The term is also sometimes, less precisely, applied to unnecessarily (and often redundantly) wordy speech in general; this is more usually referred to as prolixity. Some people defend the use of additional words which sometimes look unnecessary as idiomatic, a matter of artistic preference or helpful in explaining complex ideas or messages, which might otherwise be unclear.
Examples of Logorrhea
In his essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946), the English writer George Orwell wrote about logorrhoea in politics. He took the following verse (9:11) from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible:

“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

He rewrote it like this:

“Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.”

Note Orwell’s deliberate usage of unnecessary words which only serve to further complicate the statement. For instance, the words “objective” and “invariably” could be cut, with virtually no loss of meaning. What both the Bible and Orwell were trying to say could be paraphrased (albeit obtusely) in three simple words: “Success is stochastic.”

In his anecdote collection Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, the physicist and storyteller Richard Feynman describes a time when he participated in a multi-disciplinary conference discussing the nebulous topic “the ethics of equality.” Feynman was at first apprehensive, having read none of the books which the conference organizers had recommended. A sociologist brought a paper which he had written beforehand to the committee where Feynman served, asking everyone to read it. Feynman found it completely incomprehensible, and feared that he was out of his depth — until he decided to pick one sentence at random and parse it until he understood. The sentence he chose (to the best of his recollection) was:

The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.

Feynman “translated” the sentence and discovered it meant “People read”. The rest of the paper soon made sense in the same fashion.

Further examples are easy to create:

The medical community indicates that a program of downsizing average total daily caloric intake is maximally efficacious in the field of proactive weight-reduction methodologies.

(I.e., “Doctors say that the best way to lose weight is to eat less”.)

This man is a member of the personality class exhibiting the tendency to term a pedally operated humus redistribution device a pedally operated humus redistribution device.

(I.e., “He’s the type to call a spade a spade”).

A well-known proverb can be expressed as:

A sizeable mass of igneous substance tumbling end-over-end down an inclined plane is unlikely to be adhered to by any statistically significant amount of lichenous material.

Nigel Hawthorne’s delivery of the character Sir Humphrey Appleby’s pieces of logorrhoea was a mainstay of the British comedy TV series Yes Minister. An example:

The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.

(i.e., “It was I”.)

Another, taken from the sequel, Yes, Prime Minister:

Prime Minister, I must protest in the strongest possible terms my profound opposition to a newly instituted practice which imposes severe and intolerable restrictions upon the ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and which will in all probability, should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a constriction of the channels of communication and culminate in organisational atrophy and administrative paralysis which will render effectively impossible the coherent and coordinated discharge of the function of government within Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

(i.e., “I want my key back”.)

The benefits of being concise
While some authors may feel that using long and obscure words gives them the appearance of greater intelligence, a recent study from the Psychology department of Princeton University found that this was not the case. Dr. Daniel Oppenheimer conducted a series of five experiments which found that when shown samples of writing with varying word length, undergraduate students rated those with short, concise text, as being written by the most intelligent authors. By contrast, those who needlessly used excessively long words or complex font types were perceived to be less intelligent. For example, the author of “The principal educational aspiration I have established for myself is to utilize my capabilities to the fullest” was rated as less intelligent than the author of the slightly more concise: “The primary academic goal I have set for myself is to use my potential to the fullest”.

In the United Kingdom, there is a pressure group called the Plain English Campaign who offer editing and training to authors in order to help achieve “Plain English”: “language that the intended audience can understand and act upon from a single reading”.
Logorrhoea as a form of mental illness
Logorrhoea is a language disorder present in a variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders including aphasia , localised cortical lesions in the thalamus , or most typically in catatonic schizophrenia.

Examples of logorrhoea might include talking or mumbling monotonously, either to others, or, more likely, oneself. This may include the repetition of particular words of phrases, often incoherently. The causes for logorrhoea remain poorly understood, but appear to be localized to frontal lobe structures known to be associated with language. As is the case, for example, in emotional lability in a wide variety of neurological conditions, other symptoms take priority in clinical management and research efforts.

Logorrhoea should not be confused with pressure of speech, which is characterised by the “flighty” alternation from topic to topic by tenuous links such as rhyming or punning Logorrhoea is a symptom of an underlying illness, and should be treated by a medical professional. Several possible causes of logorrhoea respond well to medication.

lilac_jive · 02-19-2009, 12:50 PM

See! I know my greek, I knew there was run in it! I should have caught the "logo" part too. Oh well.

rebarnmom · 02-19-2009, 02:03 PM

DesertGrandma's post is a fine example of Logorrhoea!

GeoffC · 02-20-2009, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rebarnmom

DesertGrandma's post is a fine example of Logorrhoea!

Nah !

It was just long-winded ....

desertgrandma · 02-20-2009, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Nah !

It was just long-winded ....

whippersnapper!

GeoffC · 02-20-2009, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

whippersnapper!

ooohhhhh !

02-19-2009, 12:34 PM	#36
desertgrandma Enjoying the show.... Posts: 14,270 Karma: 10462843 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Arizona Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir	Correct spelling And Great Example.... From dictionary.com Logorrhoea Logorrhoea or logorrhea (Greek λογορροια, logorrhia, “word-flux”) is defined as an “excessive flow of words” and, when used medically, refers to incoherent talkativeness occurring in certain kinds of mental illness, such as mania. Logomania is the medical condition and mania with underlying symptom logorrhoea. The spoken form of logorrhoea (in the non-medical sense) is a kind of verbosity which uses superfluous (or fancy) words to disguise an otherwise useless message as useful or intellectual, and is commonly known as “verbal diarrhea” or “diarrhea of the mouth”. Logorrhoea as a description of rhetoric The word logorrhoea is often used pejoratively to describe prose which is highly abstract, and, consequently, contains little concrete language. Since abstract writing is hard to visualize, it often seems as though it makes no sense, and that all the words are excessive. Writers in academic fields which concern themselves mostly with the abstract, such as philosophy and (especially) postmodernism, often fail to include extensive concrete examples of their ideas; so an examination (superficial or otherwise, according to various points of view) of their work might lead one to believe that it is all nonsense, hence the pejorative epithet “pomobabble” (a neologism inspired from postmodern babble) and "archibabble" (another neologism, this one meaning "architect babble"). The widespread expectation that scholarly works in these fields will look at first glance like nonsense is the source of humor that pokes fun at these fields by comparing actual nonsense with real academic writing. (Several computer programs have been made that can generate texts resembling the styles of these fields but which are actually nonsensical.) In an attempt to prove this lack of rigour, physics professor Alan Sokal wrote a nonsensical essay, and had it published in a respected journal (Social Text) as a practical joke. The journal kept defending it as a genuine article even after its author rebuked it publicly in a subsequent article in another academic journal. (See Sokal Affair). Logorrhoea can also be used as a form of euphemism, to disguise unpleasant facts and ideas. The term is also sometimes, less precisely, applied to unnecessarily (and often redundantly) wordy speech in general; this is more usually referred to as prolixity. Some people defend the use of additional words which sometimes look unnecessary as idiomatic, a matter of artistic preference or helpful in explaining complex ideas or messages, which might otherwise be unclear. Examples of Logorrhea In his essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946), the English writer George Orwell wrote about logorrhoea in politics. He took the following verse (9:11) from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible: “I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” He rewrote it like this: “Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.” Note Orwell’s deliberate usage of unnecessary words which only serve to further complicate the statement. For instance, the words “objective” and “invariably” could be cut, with virtually no loss of meaning. What both the Bible and Orwell were trying to say could be paraphrased (albeit obtusely) in three simple words: “Success is stochastic.” In his anecdote collection Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, the physicist and storyteller Richard Feynman describes a time when he participated in a multi-disciplinary conference discussing the nebulous topic “the ethics of equality.” Feynman was at first apprehensive, having read none of the books which the conference organizers had recommended. A sociologist brought a paper which he had written beforehand to the committee where Feynman served, asking everyone to read it. Feynman found it completely incomprehensible, and feared that he was out of his depth — until he decided to pick one sentence at random and parse it until he understood. The sentence he chose (to the best of his recollection) was: The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels. Feynman “translated” the sentence and discovered it meant “People read”. The rest of the paper soon made sense in the same fashion. Further examples are easy to create: The medical community indicates that a program of downsizing average total daily caloric intake is maximally efficacious in the field of proactive weight-reduction methodologies. (I.e., “Doctors say that the best way to lose weight is to eat less”.) This man is a member of the personality class exhibiting the tendency to term a pedally operated humus redistribution device a pedally operated humus redistribution device. (I.e., “He’s the type to call a spade a spade”). A well-known proverb can be expressed as: A sizeable mass of igneous substance tumbling end-over-end down an inclined plane is unlikely to be adhered to by any statistically significant amount of lichenous material. Nigel Hawthorne’s delivery of the character Sir Humphrey Appleby’s pieces of logorrhoea was a mainstay of the British comedy TV series Yes Minister. An example: The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun. (i.e., “It was I”.) Another, taken from the sequel, Yes, Prime Minister: Prime Minister, I must protest in the strongest possible terms my profound opposition to a newly instituted practice which imposes severe and intolerable restrictions upon the ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and which will in all probability, should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a constriction of the channels of communication and culminate in organisational atrophy and administrative paralysis which will render effectively impossible the coherent and coordinated discharge of the function of government within Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. (i.e., “I want my key back”.) The benefits of being concise While some authors may feel that using long and obscure words gives them the appearance of greater intelligence, a recent study from the Psychology department of Princeton University found that this was not the case. Dr. Daniel Oppenheimer conducted a series of five experiments which found that when shown samples of writing with varying word length, undergraduate students rated those with short, concise text, as being written by the most intelligent authors. By contrast, those who needlessly used excessively long words or complex font types were perceived to be less intelligent. For example, the author of “The principal educational aspiration I have established for myself is to utilize my capabilities to the fullest” was rated as less intelligent than the author of the slightly more concise: “The primary academic goal I have set for myself is to use my potential to the fullest”. In the United Kingdom, there is a pressure group called the Plain English Campaign who offer editing and training to authors in order to help achieve “Plain English”: “language that the intended audience can understand and act upon from a single reading”. Logorrhoea as a form of mental illness Logorrhoea is a language disorder present in a variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders including aphasia , localised cortical lesions in the thalamus , or most typically in catatonic schizophrenia. Examples of logorrhoea might include talking or mumbling monotonously, either to others, or, more likely, oneself. This may include the repetition of particular words of phrases, often incoherently. The causes for logorrhoea remain poorly understood, but appear to be localized to frontal lobe structures known to be associated with language. As is the case, for example, in emotional lability in a wide variety of neurological conditions, other symptoms take priority in clinical management and research efforts. Logorrhoea should not be confused with pressure of speech, which is characterised by the “flighty” alternation from topic to topic by tenuous links such as rhyming or punning Logorrhoea is a symptom of an underlying illness, and should be treated by a medical professional. Several possible causes of logorrhoea respond well to medication.

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02-13-2009, 12:09 PM	#31
GeoffC Chocolate Grasshopper ... Posts: 27,599 Karma: 20821184 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Scotland Device: Muse HD , Cybook Gen3 , Pocketbook 302 (Black) , Nexus 10: wife has PW	One postscript pica is equal to 4.23333333 millimeters, but I suspect that is not what you are looking for, unless one is prepared to accept the ravenous appetite of the pages in a book for a veritable cornocopia of pica amongst the non-nutritious words written by a crazy fellow on the subject of dogs' penchant for cat candy that is especially true in the winter when said candy is a frozen delicacy; or so I am informed.

02-19-2009, 08:52 AM	#34
GeoffC Chocolate Grasshopper ... Posts: 27,599 Karma: 20821184 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Scotland Device: Muse HD , Cybook Gen3 , Pocketbook 302 (Black) , Nexus 10: wife has PW	I can't possibly think of anyone of whom I could accuse of being logorrheoic ....

02-19-2009, 12:50 PM	#37
lilac_jive Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,870 Karma: 27376 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Device: PRS-505	See! I know my greek, I knew there was run in it! I should have caught the "logo" part too. Oh well.

02-19-2009, 02:03 PM	#38
rebarnmom Wizard Posts: 1,289 Karma: 4525055 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: rural Illinois, USA Device: Sony PRS-700 (traded in), Sony PRS-650	DesertGrandma's post is a fine example of Logorrhoea!