An Outline of English Speech-craft

Syncope. The cutting of a penning from within a word; as, ‘He ha-s’ for ‘he haves,’ ‘Gospel’ for ‘Godspel.’ The outcutting is truly an outwearing of the clipping.

A clipping’s lost by syncope,
As subtle’s sounded minus b.

Synecdoche. Gr. syn, up; ek, out; dochē, a taking. An outtaking or outculling, as of a share of a thing for the whole, or the matter for the thing; as, ‘a hundred heads’ for ‘a hundred men’; ‘twenty hands’ for ‘twenty workmen’; ‘a cricketer’s willow’ for his ‘bat.’

Synonym. Gr. syn, together; onyma a name. Synonyms are words or names of the same meaning, twin-words; as, rabbit and coney, volume and tome, yearly and annual, letter and epistle. Twains of words are, however, less often synonyms than they are so called.

Syntax. Speech-trimming. A trim is a fully right or good state of a thing, the state in which it ought to be; and ‘to trim’ a thing is to put it in trim, or fully as it ought to be. ‘To trim a boat,’ to set it as it ought to be – upright, not heeling. ‘To trim a bonnet or dress,’ to put it fully as it ought to be. And so ‘to trim a hedge’: a man may think that, because much of the trimming of a hedge is done by cutting, a trimming is therefore a cutting. ‘I am out of trim’; ‘to trim,’ as a man in politics, albeit it may not be to set himself morally as he ought to be, is to set himself as he thinks that he ought to be for the nonce.

Tautology. Word-sameness, a saying over again of the same thing or words.

Technical. Craftly.

Telegram. Wire-spell. (See Spell (#Spell).)

Telegraph (the electric). Spell-wire.

Telescope. Spyglass.

Tense. Time.

Termination. A word-ending.

Tmesis. A word-cutting or splitting or outsundering; as, ‘The child has overthrown the flower-pot.’ By word-cutting or outsundering – ‘The child has thrown the flower-pot over.’

By tmesis you may oft outshare
A word’s two word-stems here and there.

Transitive is overfaresome; intransitive, unoverfaresome.

Triphthong. Gr. tri, three; phthongos, sound. A threefold sound.

Uncial. L. literæ unciales, text letters. Capital letters.

Under.Undersea, submarine; underspan, subtend; underslinking, subterfuge.

Up-.Upclashing, collision; upthrong, congregate.

Upmating. The upmating of the persons, called in Greek syllepsis, touches the use of the personal pronouns. A second or third person upmated with the first is reckoned as first, and a third upmated with the second is reckoned as second; as,

‘That boat belongs to my brother (3) and me (1). We (1) bought it.’

‘That is known only to you (2) and me (1). We know it.’

‘I saw you (2) and your brother (3). You (2) were there.’

But persons are upmated as well from kindliness or civility as from the calls of speech-craft. Thus a speaker will often upmate himself with a hearer or another, as a mother may upmate herself with her child by we, instead of thou or you; as, though the going is only that of the child.

Here we go up, up, up;
Here we go down, down, downy;
Here we go backward and forward;
And here we go round, round, roundy —

A young man may say to a girl friend, ‘How proud we are,’ meaning ‘you are’; or a man may say of others who might not be very brisk at work, ‘We are not very strong to-day’; or a footman may upmate himself with the heads of the house with such wording as ‘We do not treat our guests so unhandsomely.’

Vocabulary. L. vocabulum, a word. A word-list, word-book, word-store.

Vocative (case). L. voco, to call. The call-case.

-y, -ig (an ending). It means eked with something: —Snowy, with snow; dirty, with dirt.

Zeugma. Gr., a yoking. A yoking of two things as to one time-word which would fit only one of them, another being outleft; as, ‘The house which my own money, and not which my father bequeathed,’ supply bought after ‘money.’

The Power of the Word-endings.

Some of the small word-endings end themselves with a dead breath-penning, and others with a half-penning. The dead pennings seem to betoken, mostly, an ending, or shortening, or lessening, in time or shape; while the half-pennings do not seem to bound, or shorten, or lessen, the meaning of their body-words.

Dead Pennings.

-ock. Hill-ock.

-ed. I walk-ed (the time-taking ended).

-ig, now -y. Wind-ig, wind-y (an eking of wind).

-op, -p; -ob, -b. Flap, flip, a quick flying; heap, hop, hip, small highenings, or humps; pop out, to poke out quickly; clap the hands, to close them quickly; stub, a small stump; wallop, to wallow or well (roll) lightly, and so as water from a spring, or in boiling. We may think that we have two very fine words in envelope and develope, whereas they seem to be nothing better than the Teutonic inwallop and unwallop, to roll in and unroll. With wallow set the Latin volvo (walwo), to roll.

-t, -et. Forlessens.

Half-Pennings.

do not so strongly, if at all, betoken endingness, or shortness, or smallness.

-m. A stem is of any length, but stump is short.

-en, -n. Golden, eked wholly in gold; blacken, to eke on freely in blackness.

-ing, as in walking, does not betoken any ending or shortening of a time-taking.

-er, -r, betokens eking out much in shape or time, as: —

It so happens that while we have a dead penning, -ed, for the ended time-taking, as, ‘he walked,’ we have a half-penning for the ongoing time-taking, as, ‘he walketh.’ It is true that -en, a half-penning, is put for -ed, as an ending of some mark-time words, as brok-en, and that -el, -l, a half-penning, may seem to mean either much or small, as prate, prattle (prat-el). Time-words with these endings in full length are weak.

Bloss-om-ed,

Black-en-ed,

Wall-op-ed,