Make Your Point > Archived Issues > CIRCUMLOCUTORY
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connect this word to others:
I love long words and many of them, assuming they're used with humor or elegance. Here's The Evening Post's Simeon Strunsky on elegance and long words:
Q. What is "elegance" in style? I know it does not mean long words and many of them; but just what does it mean?
A. Elegance is appropriateness. Long and circumlocutory terms are just as elegant in the mouth of a fashionable preacher as shorter and uglier words in the mouth of some one else. Hamlet's "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" and Chuck Connors's "Wouldn't it bend your Merry Widow?" are equally elegant.
To rephrase: just as there's a time and a place for short words, there's an occasion and a ubiety for sesquipedalian circumlocutions.
Before we hop on the circumlocution merry-go-round, let's connect that word to others that also involve going around and around, words that also come from the Latin circum, "around:"
1. Something circ_____s follows a rounded path or an out-of-the-way path, or it goes around and around instead of being direct or straightforward.
2. To circ______late is to walk around something, or to walk around something in words--that is, to talk around and around the real subject instead of getting straight to it.
And, let's recall some synonyms of circumlocutory:
1. A t___id thing seems swollen or inflated with too many words.
2. A g____lous person talks a lot about stuff that doesn't matter, rarely getting to the point.
3. Something di___se has way too many words, as if the words were poured all across a wide area.
4. V___ble people talk fast and easily, as if words are rolling out of their mouths. It could be that they just won't shut up, or that they're talking so smoothly they don't really mean what they're saying, or both.
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
make your point with...
"CIRCUMLOCUTORY"
Locution is speech, and locutions are phrases or expressions.
Circumlocution (said "SIR come low CUE shun") is indirect speech: talking or writing that seems to curve around (or go around and around) instead of going straight to the point. And circumlocutions are indirect or round-and-round phrases or expressions.
So, circumlocutory people and things are wordy and indirect (instead of going straight to the point).
Pronunciation:
SIR come LOCK you tore ee
Part of speech:
Adjective: "her circumlocutory habits," "his style is circumlocutory."
Other forms:
Probably the only other forms you'll need are the nouns: the uncountable "circumlocution" (indirect speech), and the countable "circumlocutions" (indirect phrases). We use these sometimes in clinical contexts, like when we're talking about someone who had a stroke and now has trouble finding words, relying on circumlocutions: "It's a thing, you know, you hold it, it has pages, it's, it's...a...book." Naturally, that's one case in which circumlocutions are no laughing matter.
But dictionaries also list plenty of other funny forms, like "circumlocute," "circumlocutionist," and "circumlocutiousness."
How to use it:
"Circumlocutory" is one of those hilarious words that is the thing it mocks: it's long, it's showy, it's a mouthful, and it's wholly unnecessary to use it when you can just say "wordy." And, it's fun.
So, when the mood seems right, talk about circumlocutory people, speech, writing, phrases, expressions, emails, letters, comments, manners, behaviors, styles, answers, descriptions, explanations, etc.
examples:
"The Secretary of State...now sits once a week at a table with half a dozen heads of sub-departments. He hears real discussion; he learns to pick men for higher work; and saves many hours of circumlocutory writing."
— Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics, 1920
"These [Old English] kennings were metaphors of circumlocution, a way to talk around the thing you want to represent. For example, hron means 'whale.' Rad means 'a road,' or 'a path.' Put them together, she said, and you get hronrad, or 'whale-road,' which means 'the sea.' The ocean is not an empty space, hronrad says — it belongs to the whale."
— Josephine Livingstone, The New York Times, 4 January 2019
has this page helped you understand "circumlocutory"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "circumlocutory" without saying "oblique" or "indirect."
try it out:
Fill in the blanks: "(For some particular reason), (someone) settled on the circumlocutory '_____.'"
Example: "Unable to think of the word 'toes,' he settled on the circumlocutory 'foot fingers.'"
before you review, play:
Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first.
Our game this month is Distinctive Definitions.
We're taking a scenic slog through poetic and philosophical definitions, wading through similes, metaphors, personifications, hyperboles, grandiloquence, and cheesiness.
In each issue, consider a definition provided by a poet, a writer, or a philosopher, and see if you can name the definiendum: the thing or concept being defined. (Is it life, love, time, death, music, sleep, pain, laughter, bubblegum, stubbing your toe…???) For example, James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) said, "What men call ________ and the Gods call dross." He’s defining something—what is it? "Treasure."
Now, you can play this game in earnest, trying to think of what the poet actually wrote--or you can play it for laughs, supplying the silliest or most sarcastic answer you can muster.
To take the silliness to the next level, gather your friends or family, deal each person a hand of cards from your copy of Apples to Apples (great for kids) or Cards Against Humanity (not for kids!!), and enjoy the ensuing hilarity. (In these games, players take turns being the judge for each round, picking the funniest from everyone’s submissions.) "What men call stretch limos and the Gods call dross." "What men call Morgan Freeman's voice and the Gods call dross."
From the previous issue:
William Earnest Henley (1849-1903) said,
"From the winter's gray despair,
From the summer's golden languor,
_____, the lover of Life,
Frees us for ever."
Answer: Death.
Try this one today:
Robert Bulwer-Lytton (1831-1891) said,
"The _____ is a nettle; disturb it, it stings.
Grasp it firmly, it stings not."
review this word:
1. The opposite of CIRCUMLOCUTORY is
A. SOBER.
B. ENIGMATIC.
C. STRAIGHTFORWARD.
2. In Little Dorrit, Dickens satirizes a typical _____ bureaucracy as "The Circumlocution Office."
A. cruel and inhumane
B. complex and convoluted
C. late-opening, early-closing
a final word:
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From Liesl's blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
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Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
I love long words and many of them, assuming they're used with humor or elegance. Here's The Evening Post's Simeon Strunsky on elegance and long words:
"CIRCUMLOCUTORY" Locution is speech, and locutions are phrases or expressions.
"The Secretary of State...now sits once a week at a table with half a dozen heads of sub-departments. He hears real discussion; he learns to pick men for higher work; and saves many hours of circumlocutory writing."
Explain the meaning of "circumlocutory" without saying "oblique" or "indirect."
Fill in the blanks: "(For some particular reason), (someone) settled on the circumlocutory '_____.'"
Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first.
1. The opposite of CIRCUMLOCUTORY is
|