Writing for Style: Words About Words

I'm astonished that I've let half of October go without any posts. Teaching, private clients, a car accident that totaled our car, researching new cars, and finally deciding on a Prius have consumed us.

Anyway, here are some words about words, courtesy of Richard Nordquist at About.com. You can find them in the second edition of the complete (20-volume) Oxford English Dictionary. You may have trouble slipping them into conversation, buy may be able to use them in an email to a fellow logophile

amphigouri (also spelled amphigory)
A "composition without sense," according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Writing that at first may appear to mean something--but upon closer study proves to be meaningless.

battology
A needless and tiresome repetition in speaking or writing.

cheville
A meaningless or redundant word or phrase inserted to round off a sentence or complete a verse.

grammatolatry
The worship of words. A grammatolator is a stickler for the forms of words.

idioglossia
Invented speech, a private language. According to the OED, "a form of dyslalia [or speech impairment] in which the person affected consistently makes substitutions in his speech sounds to such an extent that he seems to speak a language of his own."

logodaedaly
"Cunning in words," according to the Oxford English Dictionary, or "skill in adorning a speech." However, the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary defines it less favorably as "the arbitrary or capricious coinage of words."

logomachy
A disagreement about words and their meanings.

orthoepy
The branch of linguistics that deals with pronunciation. Interestingly, some orthoepists pronounce the term with an emphasis on the or while others stress the tho.

rumbelow
A meaningless combination of syllables serving as a refrain, such as the sounds "yo ho ho" and "hey ho" of rowing sailors.

xenoglossia
Speaking or writing in a known language that one has never studied or learned (at least not in any perceivably normal way).