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> a clearly Germanic word in window
Certainly doesn't sound German, but I will try to find some examples of 'German ditching Germanic in favour of Latin, while English preserves the Germanic'.
What dictionary.com says about 'window':
The word window conceals a poetic image that is not at all transparent. Our word comes to us from the Scandinavian invaders and settlers of England in the early Middle Ages. Although we have no record of the exact word they gave us, it was related to Old Norse vindauga, “window,” a compound made up of vindr, “wind,” and auga, “eye,” reflecting the fact that at one time windows contained no glass. In our time we have taken window, which has been recorded in the language for almost 800 years.
On another topic:
Thanks for 'pleonasm' Rouspeteur! Do you think some use the word tautology when they actually mean this word?
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tsuwm
(member)
Thu May 18 09:55:53 2000
Re: Is there a literary term for....
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in Rhetoric, I think this is called a pleonasm, the use of more words than necessary to convey an idea (not to be confused with a tautology, needless repetition of an idea :)
tsuwm
Dept. of pleonasm Dept.
Iowa City, IA
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This is almost a YART!* Dunno if you're going to have any luck searching on Clancy but Hoffnung might^ work.
*Or was it a Dartre? Nope, not there either.
^ It din't
Brick layer din't work, neither. There's something out there somewhere. Gerard Hoffnung used to tell it. Try googling.
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"how many of you have actually® adfenestrated"
A story in TIME towards end of WWII illustrated the dangers of adfenestration. A GI concealed from his family that he was close to discharge, intending to "surprise" them. He arrived in his home town about 2AM. He knew there was a broken latch on a rear window, and entered without difficulty. He crept up the stairs, threw open his parents' bedroom door, turned on the lights, and yelled:"Surprise!"
Was he surprised. His parents had moved.
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Dear Bob: wouldn't "exfenestration" be closer?
I, for one, would certainly not want to be any closer to that exfenestration.
Rod
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Re: the bricklayers lament I knew this as a Hoffnung story as well, but googling provided a site http://www.snopes2.com/humor/letters/bricks.htm which has several prior instances of the story, even back to 1918. Rod
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"I, for one, would certainly not want to be any closer to that exfenestration."
Rod
Dear Rod: A kiss in the dark is not always a lark. But osculum infamum cum ferrum ardentum vindicatum dulcissimum est. (makebelieve Latin)
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> tautology: needless repetition of an idea
Goethe once said that the Koran was a glorious book of moral tautologies. A Moslem might therefore wish to omit the 'needless' in tsuwn's definition of the word.
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osculum infamum cum ferrum ardentum vindicatum dulcissimum est
something about the disgraceful kiss of an ardent but vindictive ferret being particularly sweet!
Rod
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for Dr. Bill's osculum infamum cum ferrum ardentum vindicatum dulcissimum est
rod offers: the disgraceful kiss of an ardent but vindictive ferret being particularly sweet!
I might suggest with burning iron but would proffer the ablative of means for of an ardent ... ferret giving us osculum infamum ferro ardento vindicatum dulcissimum est
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