An Outline of English Speech-craft

Expanded or paraphrased: —

‘With great gratitude, O God (said the Pharisee), I contemplate my own superior attainments. How free is my mind from a variety of black offences which invade the consciences of others! Extortion, injustice, and adultery are crimes (said he, striking his breast) which have no harbour here. Who can lay to my charge the neglect of any religious duty? Are not my tithes paid with cheerfulness, and my fasts observed with sanctity?’

‘And the Publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.’

‘The Publican, on the other hand, with every mark of the deepest contrition, stood abashed in a corner of the temple. Conscious of his own demerits, he was afraid to raise his eyes to that Being who sees the least degree of impurity with offence. After many ineffectual struggles to form the sighing of a contrite heart into the language of prayer, his efforts ended in this one exclamation, God be merciful to me a sinner.’

Parenthesis. An inwedging of a sentence within another: – ‘Thou sayest – but they are but vain words – I have strength for the war.’

Parody. A song-mocking.

Paronomasia. A kind of play on words of more or less like sound, though of sundry meaning; as, ‘Though last not least.’ ‘Non amissi sed præmissi’ (said of friends deceased), ‘Not forgone but foregone.’

Paronomasia is found
In pairs of words of some like sound.

Participle. A thing-marking shape of the time-word.

Particle. A wordling, a small shapefast word.

Patronymic. Gr. pater, father, and onoma, name. A surname or sirename of a man taken from the forename of his father; as, John Richardson, Dafydd Ap-hoel, Patrick Mac-Duff, Jeroboam Ben-Nebat.

Pedigree. Kin-stem, forekin-stem.

Penultimate. Last but one.

Perambulator (the child’s carriage). Push-wainling.

Perfect. Fordone, forended, full-ended.

Period, in rhetoric (redecraft) and speechcraft, is so called, as a speech-ring or speech-round, a full round of thought-wording, in which the speech-meaning is kept uphanging and more or less unclear, till the last word or word-cluster by which it is clearly fulfilled; as, ‘(1) That among the sundry changes of the world (2), (3) our hearts may surely there be fixed (4): (5) where true joys are to be found (6).’ The whole thought-wording is a period or speech-round. From (1) to (4) is a limb (called in Greek a kōlon) and has a meaning, though not a full one beyond which the mind awaits nothing more. The word-cluster from (1) to (2) yields no full meaning, and is called in Greek a komma (kopma), a cutting or shareling. Thence we see the source of the names and uses of the stops – the period (.), colon (:), comma (,). The period marked the end of the period; the colon that of the kolon; and the comma that of a comma, or cutting of a colon.

The word seems to be often misused. A period (Gr. periodos) of time or wording is rightly a running of it round again to its like beginning; as, a week – from Sunday round to Sunday; or a year – from January to January.

A straight stretch of time or words is not truly a period; as, a man’s life from birth to manhood is not a ring-gate, beginning anew at childhood.

Periphrasis. Gr. peri, round; phrasis, a speaking. A roundabout speaking of a thing instead of an outright naming of it, a name-hinting; as, ‘The gentleman at the head of Her Majesty’s Government’ for Lord B.

Personal (time-word); not an impersonal one; as, ‘It rains.’ ‘It snows;’ but one with a named time-taker, as ‘John rides.’

Perverse. Wayward, froward.

Pervious. Throughletting.

Petrify. To stonen, forstonen.

Philology. Speechlore.

Phonetic. Soundly.

Phonography, phonotypy. Sound-spelling. Surely a photograph should be a phototype. Graphō is to graze or grave along a body, but a photograph is given by a plumb downstriking of rays of light – a typē and not a graphē. With graphē and typē we may set a glyphē (from glyphō), an outsmoothing of a shape, as that of a figure from a block of stone. Glyphō is a fellow stem-word to glykys, smooth, soft, or sweet.

Phrase. Gr. phrazo, to speak, say. A word-cluster, a word-set, a cluster or set of byhanging words.

Pirate. Sea-robber, weeking, wyking, wicing (Gloss. 11 cent.). The wicings or weekings or vicings were so called as lurking about in the bays, wicas, weeks, wykes, or wiches.

Plagiary. A thought-pilferer.

Pleonasm. Gr. pleonazo, to fullen or overfullen. An overwording; as, ‘A great [thing of a] boar’ for ‘a great boar.’ ‘What [ever in the world] are you doing?’ ‘Never [in all my whole life] have I seen the like.’

A pleonasm oft is heard
To strengthen speech by word on word.

Plocē. Gr. plokē, a twining or folding. A twining or folding of a foregiven name, of one meaning the same name, in another; as, ‘Then Edwin was Edwin (or himself) again.’ Worthy of himself. ‘Coal is now coal,’ i. e. scarce and costly.

By plocē you inweave a name
Once more with meaning not the same.

Plural (number). The somely (number).

Polyptoton. Gr. poly, many; ptotos, case. The inbringing of fellow stem-words or root-words in sundry cases or ways: – ‘He, friendless once, befriended friends.’

Posterity. Afterkin.

Postposition. A hinder case-word, a case-word put after the thing-name; as, in Hindustani, panee-main, water in; panee-sae, water from; panee-ko, water to. Showing the source of case-endings.

Potential (mood). L. potentia, might, power. Mayly.

Predicate. The wording of the time-taking; as, ‘John walked twenty miles.’

Prefix. A fore-eking, a forewordling; as, be-set, for-give, out-run.

Preposition. A case-word.

Preterite. Bygone, past.

Programme. A foredraught.

Pronoun (personal). A name-token, a stead-word. Pronoun Adjective, mark-word.

Proper name. A one-head name.

Prosopopœia. Gr. prosopon, face, person; poieo, to make. The putting of an unmatterly or impersonal thing as a person.

Prosopopœia shows your mind
Unlive things doing as mankind.

Protasis. The hinge time-taking.