{"id":42253,"date":"2025-05-05T16:01:45","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T21:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=42253"},"modified":"2025-05-05T16:01:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T21:01:45","slug":"word-of-the-day-1037","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2025\/05\/05\/word-of-the-day-1037\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Of The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catachresis<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. : use of the wrong word for the context<\/li>\n
  2. : use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech (such as blind mouths<\/em>) [Merriam-Webster<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    I’ve been running across a lot of unfamiliar words of late, although this seems a specialist word for grammarians, and I’m definitely not a grammarian. The Merriam-Webster link also discusses grammarian usages of catachresis, mostly in what appears to be a snitly way. Noted in “Your existential terror is adorable<\/em><\/a>,” Rachel Manteuffel, WaPo<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

    Slackmoji is essentially an adorable medium. You can, as my colleague Chloe Coleman has, choose a little cartoon frog as an avatar for yourself and illustrate your feelings that way. Perhaps you feel shame.<\/p>\n

    And while you admit you feel ashamed, you\u2019ve also cutened it up for public consumption. It\u2019s \u2026 processed. Indirect. Ironic. Visually catachrestic. It\u2019s like poetry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    I recall castigating someone, in email, for using an emoji. This is back in the BBS days, where it was all ASCII, not the emoji-enabling UTF-8, and so it was nothing more than :). I told them it was lazy and would never last.<\/p>\n

    I was half-right. Yes, that’s shamelessly stolen from someone giving a speech concerning X Windows at one of the UNIX conferences a long time ago. Or maybe it was the commentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Catachresis: : use of the wrong word for the context : use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech (such as blind mouths) [Merriam-Webster] I’ve been running across a lot of unfamiliar words of late, although this seems a specialist word for grammarians, and I’m definitely not a \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42254,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42253\/revisions\/42254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}