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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Plinky (We're in a Rush)

Not much time, today. Thus, a Plinky response.

"Name something that is inappropriately named."

Well, that's easy: Palindrome.

We're sure all our hyperliterate followers know that a palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards and forwards: Anna, Otto, "Madam, I'm Adam," "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!"

We think that the word for a palindrome should BE a palindrome: 'palindromemordnilap' (PAL-in-dro-muh-MORD-ni-lap), perhaps. We feel the word should represent the phenomenon it describes, just as, for example, the word 'onomatopoeia' represents the phenomenon IT describes. Onomatopoeia, of course, is "the formation of a word . . .by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent." In other words, it's when you make a word out of a sound, like 'splash' or 'boom.'

'Onomatopoeia,' of course, is an approximation of the strangulated sound made in the throat of a person trying to say 'onomatopoeia.'

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