Word For The Day, Thursday, July 21, 2011

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day".

anacoluthon \an-uh-kuh-LOO-thahn\ ; noun
syntactical inconsistency or incoherence within a sentence; especially : a shift in an unfinished sentence from one syntactic construction to another

Example sentences:
Shakespeare uses anacoluthon to express the king's emotion in this line from Henry V: "Rather proclaim it, Westmorelan, through my host, / That he which hath no stomach to this fight, / Let him depart."

"The anacoluthon is not a trope of meaning, like metaphor or metonymy, but it is rather a disruption in a meaningful pattern."
-- From Yasco Horsman's 2011 book Theaters of Justice

Etymology:
Looking at examples of -- never mind that, we can't think of any -- let us look at the history of "anacoluthon." (Or maybe we can think of an example. The shift in the preceding sentence from "looking at examples of" to "let us look at the root of" is one!) "Anacoluthon" traces back to Greek "anakolouthos," which means "inconsistent" and is a compound of "an-" ("not") and "akolouthos" ("following"). Anacolutha (the word's plural form) frequently occur in speech and in literary writing especially to express excited or distraught emotion or thoughts.

The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. The Review threads are linked for your edification. ;-)
Practice makes perfect.....post on....

(1) Great word!

(2) More anacoluthia at "Word For The Day, Thursday, September 2, 2010 - anacoluthia"

(3) William F. Buckley discussed the anacoluthon in an obituary for William F. Rickenbacker, reprinted in National Review on May 23, 2005. Here's an excerpt:

"A few years ago, responding to a rebuke for his failure to visit New York more often, he wrote me, 'I too wish I could move around a bit more, but I seem to have simplified my life a good deal in recent years. Three or four hours a day at the old piano will nail a fellow down good and hard. But I have dreams, dreams in full color, not to mention aroma, of lunch at Paone's [the reference is to the restaurant around the corner on 34th Street and Third Avenue, heavily patronized by NATIONAL REVIEW], which, by the way, why doesn't somebody burn it down and rebuild it up here in God's country?' The formulation of that last sentence is an inside joke, dating back to the opening sentence of an editorial written by the late Willmoore Kendall for NR. It began, 'Last week at Harriman House, which by the way why doesn't somebody burn it down ...' There was some concern not over the sentiments expressed but over the diction used, until Bill relieved us by declaring that Kendall had used an anacoluthon, defined as

an abrupt change within a sentence to a second construction inconsistent with the first, sometimes used for rhetorical effect; for example, I warned him that if he continues to drink, what will become of him.

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