{"id":3671,"date":"2014-09-21T17:41:25","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T00:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2016-02-07T11:50:28","modified_gmt":"2016-02-07T19:50:28","slug":"thats-not-what-i-meant-or-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=3671","title":{"rendered":"That&#8217;s not what I meant.  Or is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You may have encountered this great example of <a href=\"http:\/\/rhetoric.byu.edu\/figures\/A\/acyrologia.htm\">acyrologia<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" width=400 src=\"http:\/\/davefarmersblog.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/01\/acyrologia.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>(I could not find an original source for the image, unfortunately!)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Acyrologia&#8221; is kind of hard to pronounce.  It is also rather obscure.  A search in the online Webster&#8217;s dictionary does not find it!  The link above to a definition takes you to a dictionary of rhetoric (<a href=\"http:\/\/rhetoric.byu.edu\/\">Silva Rhetoricae<\/a>, the Forest of Rhetoric).  It defines acyrologia as &#8220;An incorrect use of words, especially the use of words that sound alike but are far in meaning from the speaker&#8217;s intentions.&#8221;  Sometimes these things slip out (malapropism) and sometimes they are done on purpose (puns, the practice of which is known as <a href=\"http:\/\/rhetoric.byu.edu\/figures\/P\/paronomasia.htm\">paranomasia<\/a>).  I&#8217;d guess that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spoonerism\">Spoonerisms<\/a> are another kind of acryologia.<\/p>\n<p>I was amused to find that the Silva Rhetoricae characterizes some of its terms by their *ethos* (&#8220;persuasive appeal of one&#8217;s character&#8221;).  For example, &#8220;Acyrologia erodes the ethos of the speaker, for it portrays his\/her ignorance.&#8221;  It also rates them by style: &#8220;Using acyrologia reflects poor diction (word choice), thus demonstrating a low level of style.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There is also <a href=\"http:\/\/rhetoric.byu.edu\/figures\/C\/cacozelia.htm\">cacozelia<\/a>, in which you use improper or overly erudite words to impress your audience or to make things sound worse than they are.  The Silva Rhetoricae cites an example from Seneca:  &#8220;This is an adultery against the state, to have sex under the trophies of Miltiades.&#8221;  Adultery.  Really?<\/p>\n<p>Do you have any favorite examples of acyrologisms?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may have encountered this great example of acyrologia: (I could not find an original source for the image, unfortunately!) &#8220;Acyrologia&#8221; is kind of hard to pronounce. It is also rather obscure. A search in the online Webster&#8217;s dictionary does not find it! The link above to a definition takes you to a dictionary of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3671"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5158,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions\/5158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}