psephology /see-FAH-lə-jee/. noun. The scientific study of elections, voting behavior and statistical trends in voting. Rarely, used to refer to Greek numerology. From Greek psēphos (pebble), from the pebbles used by the Ancient Greeks in voting. A side-note: ballot derives from the Italian balla (ball), based on a similar method of voting by placing balls in a container.
Words Beginning with P
parnel
parnel /PAR-nəl/. noun. A prostitute. More specifically: a priest’s mistress (though who’s to say none of those were love matches?). Often seen in the phrase “tender parnel.” Also rendered as pannell, pernel and others. From Pernel, a shortened form of the name Petronilla which was, at one time, a popular feminine form of the name Peter. Beyond that, the etymology is unclear.
paronomasia
paronomasia /pair-on-ə-MAY-zee-uh/. noun. A play with words using words that sound alike but have different meanings. A pun. Perhaps the most famous example in literature appear in the opening lines of Shakespeare’s Richard III, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York,” in which the “sun” also refers to Richard himself, a son of the house of York. Paronomasia, in fact, breaks down into five types…which I leave as an exercise for the Clamor. From Latin, from Greek paronomasia (play upon words which sound similarly), from paronomazein (to alter slightly, to call with slight change of name).
pizzle
pizzle /PI-zəl/. noun. An animal penis, most often a bull’s, or a whip made from the same. Likely from German pesel or Flemish pezel (sinew, bowstring).
“…as he entered and walked over toward the bull’s stall. —There! he said, swinging round, and the lantern with him, —There’s a masterful pizzle for you!” (William Gaddis)
“Oh you are an angel! You may sit, Dick. (Pause.) In a word, REDUCE the pressure instead of increasing it. (Lyrical.) Caress, fount of resipescence! (Calmer.) Dick, if you would. (Swish and thud of pizzle on flesh. Faint cry from FOX.) Careful, Miss.” (Samuel Beckett)
“You gutless popinjay! My dog has more valor in its pizzle than you possess in your entire body!” (Jasper Fforde)
“The Vandiemenlander stood in the street opposite with his pizzle in one hand and the revolver in the other.” (Cormac McCarthy)
“So enjoy yourselves my loves happily reading what follows for your bodily comfort and the good of your loins. Listen now, you ass-pizzles. May ulcers give you gammy legs: and remember to drink a toast back to me!” (Francois Rabelais)
“Carry on up Clerkenwell, indeed, would have been a more suitable title for this arrestingly crude novel, thronged as it is with lusty nuns, flatulent merchants, monks who can’t keep their pizzles in their cassocks and flagellation-hungry canons.” (Robert MacFarlane)
“Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; ‘tis very late, i’
faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.”
(William Shakespeare)
phatic
phatic /FA-dik/. adjective. Speech or speech sounds that are intended to communicate emotions or affirm a social connection rather than convey information. For instance, the standard “How are you?” greeting for which no reply is necessary or expected. Trivial or purely formal speech. From Greek phatos (spoken).
“How they talked, on and on. Glass after glass, as they went through the bottles the winemaker opened one after the other, with total disregard for the spittoons placed here and there in the room for those who wanted to taste without fear of getting drunk; they drank methodically, accompanying the purely phatic rehashing of clearly imaginary memories with impressive amounts of liquid.” (Muriel Barberry)
“In short—and this will be explained below—sport is the maximum aberration of “phatic” speech and therefore, finally, the negation of all speech, and hence the beginning of the dehumanization of man or the “humanistic” invention of an idea of Man that is deceptive at the outset.” (Umberto Eco)
“The doctor’s long speeches—customarily phatic and ceremonially polite—say little but sing much.” (William H. Gass)
“Every night, the 10-Port cabin steward, Petra, when she turns down your bed, leaves on your pillow—along with the day’s last mint and Celebrity’s printed card wishing you sweet dreams in six languages—the next day’s Nadir Daily, a phatic little four-page ersatz newspaper printed on white vellum in a navy-blue font.” (David Foster Wallace)
“Who is the enemy? We fully trained soldiers asked ourselves in Vietnam. The corrupt Diem family? Francophobes among the Chinese? The lieutenant’s West Point professors? The phatic orators in Congress?” (Barry Lopez)
“It was he who wanted to talk! The driver was content to dispense with phatic thanks and chatter.” (Samuel R. Delaney)
Elsewhere: Wordnik.
paraprosdokian
paraprosdokian /pair-ə-prohs-DOH-kee-ən/ noun. A figure of speech featuring a surprise turn or ending. A common rhetorical device in comedy exemplified by the one-liners of Steven Wright, Mitch Hedberg and Woody Allen. From Ancient Greek pará (against) + prosdokía (expectation). Some examples of paraprodoskians:
“I haven’t slept for ten days…because that would be too long.” (Mitch Hedberg)
“If all the girls at Vassar were laid end-to-end…I wouldn’t be surprised.” (Dorothy Parker)
“There but for the grace of God—goes God.” (Winston Churchill)
“It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” (Woody Allen)
“If I could just say a few words…I’d be a better public speaker.” (Homer Simpson)
“The last thing I want to do is hurt you—but it’s still on the list.” (Steven Wright)
Select Synonyms: riposte, one-liner, witticism, wisecrack.
Elsewhere: Wordnik.
polysyndeton
polysyndeton /POL-ee-SIN-də-tahn/. noun. The use of several conjunctions—usually repeated—in succession. AKA “overly many conjunctions.” A very common biblical device and one which often adds gravity, mystery, breathlessness, or expansiveness to a phrase. From Greek polu (poly) + sundetos (bound together).
“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.” (King James Bible)
“Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war—not history’s forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars.” (James Goldman)
“Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh and breath and the ruling part.” (Marcus Aurelius)
“And the basement kitchen in nipping February, with napkins on the line slung across from door to chockablock corner, and a bicycle by the larder very much down at wheels, and hats and toy engines and bottles and spanners on the broken rocking chair, and billowing papers and half-finished crosswords stacked on the radio always turned full tilt, and the fire smoking, and onions peeling, and chips always spitting on the stove, and small men in their overcoats talking of self-discipline and the ascetic life until the air grew woodbine-blue and the clock choked and the traffic died” (Dylan Thomas)
“Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes
capons and clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the
signs of leaping-houses and the blessed sun himself
a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no
reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand
the time of the day.” (William Shakespeare)“It came boring out of the east like some ribald satellite of the coming sun howling and bellowing in the distance and the long light of the headlamp running through the tangled mesquite brakes and creating out of the night the endless fenceline down the dead straight right of way and sucking it back again wire and post mile on mile into the darkness after where the boilersmoke disbanded slowly along the faint new horizon and the sound came lagging and he stood still holding his hat in his hands in the passing ground-shudder watching it till it was gone.” (Cormac McCarthy)