• soliloquy •
Pronunciation: sê-li-lê-kwi • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A monologue, a speech to oneself, a speech made when no one else is present or, on stage, to the audience by one performer.
Notes: Usually, if a word ending on a Y is preceded by a vowel, the Y does not change to I before the plural suffix -s, for example, boys, monkeys, buoys. Today's Good Word and all others ending on -loquy are exceptions: more than one soliloquy are soliloquies. Soliloquies are given by soliloquists.
In Play: We most naturally associate soliloquies with the stage: "The snores arising from the audience during Hamlet's soliloquy were so disconcerting that the actor omitted several lines." However, the word works just as well off-stage: "I have given a series of soliloquies about saving energy in this house over the past month and would appreciate seeing them develop into a general discussion."
Word History: Today's Good Word is a rarity: a word whose precise origin we know. The Latin word, soliloquium, was first used in the Liber Soliloquiorum "Book of Soliloquies" by St. Augustine (354-430). Augustine created his new word from Latin solus "only, sole" + loqui "to speak". Latin solus came from a root that also combined with a suffix -bh, resulting in German selbst "self", Russian sebya "self", and English self—after a change or two. We have discussed the origin of loqui before, so here I will just refer those of you interested in this word to those discussions: ventriloquy and obloquy. (Let's hope that our expression of gratitude to Ann Parker for suggesting today's Good Word will not be a soliloquy; she deserves much more.)
SOLILOQUY
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SOLILOQUY
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How encouraging to know that I'm not really talking to myself; I'm delivering a soliloquy! Who needs therapy? Not me!
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
No one that has ever seen the original version of the film, To Be Or Not To Be, can forget the look on Jack Benny's face when Robert Stacks would get up in the middle of Benny's delivery of Hamlet's Soliloquy.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
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Re: SOLILOQUY
Of course, if we are all saying the same thing, I guess one would have to call it a chorus.(Let's hope that our expression of gratitude to Ann Parker for suggesting today's Good Word will not be a soliloquy; she deserves much more.)
(Thanks, Ann!)
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