Talk:Circumlocution

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POV?[edit]

"The great writer Charles Dickens"
138.243.228.52 04:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is doubted? It is challenged? Is is just somebody's opinion? "Great" may be unnecessary here, but "NPOV" does not stand for "No point-of-view. --Wetman 09:27, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's clearly a point of view; some people may think Charles Dickens to be great, other people may not, and we shouldn't take sides, particularly when it's clearly unnecessary. Unless there's any objection, I'm going to remove the word. Fysidiko 01:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

POV or not, the word is pointless here - I've removed it AndrewWTaylor 14:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The word great is important to underline the weight of the statement. Not everyone who reads the article will be familiar with Mr. Dickens. For this reason, it is a valuable word. Imagine it read "Gerald Jones devoted a whole chapter of....' and you will understand this point. I suggest it is replaced, or changed to "the highly talented and renowned writer Charles Dickens" 60.50.122.108 (talk) 14:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that not everyone is familiar with Charles Dickens is why there is a link to the article on Charles Dickens where his name is. --141.238.105.221 (talk) 06:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"...some people may think Charles Dickens to be great, other people may not, and we shouldn't take sides..." Amazing! Where could one begin? This is a complete misunderstanding of the Neutral Point of View that Wikipedia is aiming for. But it is quite a typical American one, unfortunately. --Wetman (talk) 23:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arrogance, a typical European trait. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.176.151.10 (talk) 18:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Holy mother of Jesus"[edit]

Multiple things here. First, I've never ever heard anyone use "Mary" like a swear word, and secondly, is there really someone out there who believes that yelling "Mary" is worse than yelling "Jesus?" It isn't too uncommon for people to swear by saying "(holy) mother of ..." and trail off, or use some form of replacement/euphemism/random word such as "mother of pearl" or, for a random example, something like "holy mother of chapstick." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.251.105 (talk) 20:36, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Historically, "Mary" or "Marry" can be seen in the works of Shakespeare. True, it is less common nowadays, but it exist as as a swear. -70.58.168.232 (talk) 04:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, The expletive, "Holy Mary Mother of God" was a fairly common and alliterative oath of horror or fear, when christian references & morays were more prevalent, and had the additional advantage of being a euphemism, to avoid 'taking the Lord's name in vain'. It seems much less common now, as most emphatic terms have a natural evolution of usage with time, from creative to hackneyed. 173.73.188.251 (talk) 17:29, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Holy Mary Mother of God" I would imagine being more common in regions with large concentrations of Catholic folk, it being the opening part of the second sentence in the two-sentence-long "Hail Mary" prayer that Catholics recite. i agree with the OP, though, I've never heard of anyone exclaiming "Mary!" as a curse, and the notion of exclaiming "Holy Mother of Jesus!" instead to avoid saying "Mary!" is that silliness. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:6033:FF4F:6CE5:7BA8 (talk) 02:41, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Circumlocution includes irksomelocutions[edit]

As many of the comments here suggest, 'Circumlocution' is a broad term consisting of many sub-types of substitution. I hope this is not an irksome-locution, but a deeper understanding would come from a more methodical exploration of the more popular categories of circumlocution. 173.73.188.251 (talk) 17:29, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Circumlocution versus paraphrase[edit]

I was just glancing over this article to try and find the difference between circumlocution and paraphrase, but it doesn't seem to be in here. Maybe we could try and include it? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:08, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Paraphrase refers to the restatement of phrases and idioms, and more typically utterances and longer texts, not just single words or expressions. Also, paraphrases are not necessarily roundabout, longer or more cumbersome than the original – quite the opposite, they can be significantly more concise (although a very concise paraphrase would be called a summary and likely would not conserve every detail of the original content, unless the original phrasing was very roundabout and unnecessarily complicated or wordy in the first place). However, periphrase[SIC?] is a synonym of circumlocution. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lyrics[edit]

Do we really need all the lyrics to some song "That's what she said" as an example of ambiguity? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎74.72.222.94 (talk) 01:48, 2013-06-16

I see no reason for their inclusion and they are completely uncited. I have removed them completely. Memtgs (talk | contribs) @ 15:35, 16-06-2013 UTC 15:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion of rap lyrics[edit]

User:Spannerjam has added sexually explicit rap lyrics into the article again. I have removed them, again, for a number of reasons. No citation is provided which establishes the lyrics as fair use per WP:SONG#LYRICS. Even if such a citation was provided, another would be needed still to establish a connection between the lyrics and the subject of the article, per WP:SYN. Finally, the inclusion of sexually-explicit lyrics on this page is probably not necessary to demonstrate the linguistic functions described by it, and strikes me as gratuitous; see WP:GRATUITOUS. Why not merely explain the phenomenon of sexual innuendos in rap lyrics? Including them does not necessarily help the reader understand the concept, and they are not currently being treated in an academic manner.

Finally: this all seems very absurd to me, I don't know why Spannerjam is so insistent on including sexual rap lyrics in the article; it is disruptive and inane. Memtgs (talk | contribs) @ 20:22, 19-06-2013 UTC 20:22, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The examples section rocked.[edit]

Nice work guys 2.220.187.186 (talk) 03:01, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Missing context[edit]

The second example in the Equivocation part seems to be missing some context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.253.13.94 (talk) 12:33, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]