brachylogy (bra-KIL-uh-jee) noun

> Conciseness of diction or an instance of such.

[From Medieval Latin brachylogia, from Greek brakhulogi, brakhu-,
brachy- (short) + -logy, from logos (word).]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

> "The term for the omission of words that are intended to be 'understood'
by the reader is ellipsis. Its extreme or irregular form has a name in
Greek rhetoric: brachylogy, relying on the listener to supply the missing
words, much as I relied on the reader to put a verb in the sentence
fragment 'A profound question, that.'"


William Safire; Microwave of the Future; The New York Times; Oct 7, 1990.

I would really appreciate it if one of the experts could make the
parts marked with > understandable/ visible to me.

I profoundly cannot make sense from these words even after looking them up.

Part one: Conciseness of diction = Very short speech.

2: The guy is giving an example of a very short omission(the ellipsis part) and the extreme omission: brachylogy, the word of the day.

BS, for a less concise treatment, read this on elliptical construction.

then there is the related punctuation symbol, ellipsis.

edit: according to Silva Rhetoricæ, the Rhetorical term brachylogia is more specifically, "The absence of conjunctions between single words."

but we've seen these sort of inconsistencies before with rhetorical terms.

I would really appreciate it if one of the experts could make the
parts marked with > understandable/ visible to me.

The difficulty (of making it visible) is due to the fact that the word refers to the absence (omission) of something unspecified.

Well--I could not find a definition of brachylogy that makes it any different from ellipsis, to me. But this one did at least clarify for me that it is not confined to speaking only:

1. brevity in word use: brevity in speech or writing, or an instance of this

2. shortened form of term: a shortened form of an expression, used in informal speech
(emphasis added)
Encarta® World English Dictionary


Both of them mean that something is left out, and that the reader/listener will usually* be able to understand what was meant.

Dictionary.com gives some good (to me) examples of ellipsis in its def. number 1:
1. Grammar. a. the omission from a sentence or other construction of one or more words that would complete or clarify the construction, as the omission of who are, while I am, or while we are from I like to interview people sitting down.
b. the omission of one or more items from a construction in order to avoid repeating the identical or equivalent items that are in a preceding or following construction, as the omission of been to Paris from the second clause of I've been to Paris, but they haven't.
(emphasis added)
Dictionary.com

*I originally had the word still, there, but after seeing Dictionary.com's examples, changed it to usually. Their "I like to interview people sitting down." could be:
a.) I like to interview people who are sitting down.;
b.) I like to interview people while I am sitting down.; OR
c.) I like to interview people while we are sitting down.

To go back to the original example: "A profound question, that". Adding words doesn't make it a sentence one would normally say - "A profound question is that". I would also say there is a shade of meaning (or at least attitude) different from "That is a profound question."

"So certain are you?"

-Yoda

Quoth Aramis, anastrophically.

Yes, I'm pretty sure by now I know what is meant. Thanks you all. I printed the Elliptical Construction page for weekend special home class.

>..> The difficulty (of making it visible) is due to the fact that the word refers to the absence (omission) of something unspecified.<..< Ha. :~)

Thanks Myridon. I think in the confusion of all those heaped up difficult words I lost track of the visiualizing example.
The example is quite clear.

tsk, tsk



-joe (it pays to use onelook, Anu) friday