January 3, 2007

breviloquence

breviloquence n. Brevity in speaking. (bre VIL o kwens)
breviloquent adj.
-- Webster's New International Dictionary Second Edition Unabridged (1943).

Bloggin' John Comments:
An elegant blending of brevity and eloquence. 'Nuff* said.

* 'Nuff is, of course, an abridgement of enough. The subtraction of a syllable at the beginning of a word to create a rhetorical effect is a figure of speech called aphaeresis. By choosing to use 'nuff in a commentary on a word that stands for brevity, I thereby used aphaeresis, aiming to achieve the rhetorical effect of, well, brevity.

Sample sentence:
Would that more legal documents were imbued with breviloquence.

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