LOGORRHEA

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LOGORRHEA

Postby Dr. Goodword » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:45 pm

• logorrhea •

Pronunciation: lah-gê-ree-ê or lo-gê-ree-ê • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass (no plural)

Meaning: Excessively wordy, incoherent speech, a storm of gibberish, possibly the result of mental instability.

Notes: Although today's Good Word means about the same as 'excessive wordiness', its rhyme with diarrhea adds a pejorative vividness that the phrase does not have. In fact, the phrase 'verbal diarrhea' is often used when today's Good Word would be more discrete and impressive. Remember to double the R in this and all other words with this ending that refer to a great flow. Outside the US you are allowed to spell today's word logorrhoea. You have your choice of adjectives: logorrheal or logorrhetic.

In Play: When wordiness just isn't quite enough, today's Good Word is what you need: "When Tryon Makepeace saw his daughter's new eyebrow rings with matching lip rings, he went from silence to sputtering logorrhea in fewer than five seconds." Notice the pejorative implication here: Tryon was not uttering flattering niceties. Radio and TV run on logorrhea: "Lacie McBride seems to enjoy the ceaseless logorrhea of the political talk shows on radio and TV."

Word History: Today's Good Word is a compound made up of Greek logos "word, idea" + rhe-in "to flow, run." Logos goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root log-/leg- that is also behind the roots of lexical (lex = leg-s-), as well as legislate and legal. The semantic connection apparently comes from an era when the word of the king was the law. Rhein comes from a root that originally had an initial S, sreu-, which picked up a T in the Germanic languages producing German Strom and English stream. (Today we thank Chris Berry for the regular stream of excellent Good Words he suggests to us.)
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dougsmit
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when?

Postby dougsmit » Fri Jun 15, 2007 4:34 am

When did this word first enter the language? Who used it? In what context was it first used?
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Postby Perry » Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:53 am

logos
1587, "second person of the Christian Trinity," from Gk. logos "word, speech, discourse," also "reason," from PIE base *leg- "to collect" (with derivatives meaning "to speak," on notion of "to pick out words"); used by Neo-Platonists in various metaphysical and theological senses and picked up by N.T. writers. Other Eng. formations from logos include logolatry "worship of words, unreasonable regard for words or verbal truth" (1810 in Coleridge); logomachy "fighting about words" (1569); logomania (1870); logophobia (1923); and logorrhea (1902).
I don't know the who or the context, but here is the when.
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Postby scw1217 » Fri Jun 15, 2007 8:04 pm

This one reminds me - My mother used to say "diarrhea of the mouth" when she wanted us kids to shut up. :shock:
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Double Rs

Postby Dr. Goodword » Fri Jun 15, 2007 10:25 pm

I've just been asked why the Rs are doubled in these words and I have no idea. Do any of you?
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Postby Stargzer » Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:36 am

This one reminds me - My mother used to say "diarrhea of the mouth" when she wanted us kids to shut up. :shock:
The full phrase I always heard was "Constipation of thought, diarrhea of the mouth." I've know my share of those who suffered from this affliction, although I think they inflicted more suffering on me than on themselves. :(
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dougsmit
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medical term

Postby dougsmit » Sat Jun 16, 2007 4:55 am

Superficial research suggests the word's 1902 use was medical applied to a psychotic disorder.

A century later is it too much to suggest it has been updated to "blogorrhea"?
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Re: Double Rs

Postby Bailey » Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:35 am

I've just been asked why the Rs are doubled in these words and I have no idea. Do any of you?
for extra points in scrabble, plus it looks weirder with just one "r".

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Double Rs

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Jun 16, 2007 11:51 pm

It might have been just for looks: that is how rime became rhyme, just to look more Greek and worthy of being used in the same sentence as rhythm.

But why the Rs are doubled, I've never heard or read.
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Postby Perry » Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:28 pm

Today's Good Word is a compound made up of Greek logos "word, idea" + rhe-in "to flow, run."
The words and ideas run faster with two Rs.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
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Re: Double Rs

Postby tcward » Sun Jun 24, 2007 1:50 am

It might have been just for looks: that is how rime became rhyme, just to look more Greek and worthy of being used in the same sentence as rhythm.

But why the Rs are doubled, I've never heard or read.
Initially, I'd say this is a quirk of Greek compound words.


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