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Jul 25, 2008
This week's theme
Words about words and language

This week's words
grammatolatry
catachresis
parapraxis
lingua franca
orthoepy

Next week's theme
Words with hidden connections to animals

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

orthoepy

PRONUNCIATION:
(or-THO-uh-pee, OR-tho-ep-ee)

MEANING:
noun: 1. Study of the pronunciation of words. 2. Customary pronunciation of a language.

Our resident orthoepist is Stuti Garg whose voice you hear in the pronunciation of the daily words.

ETYMOLOGY:
Via Latin from Greek ortho- (correct) + epos (word), ultimately from the Indo-European root wekw- (to speak) that also gave us voice, vowel, vouch, vocation, evoke, revoke, advocate, and epic.

USAGE:
"'Splash a little guzzelean,' the crowd muttered.
'Gas-o-lean,' shouted an angry Nikitia Ivanich from above.
'Is it really all that difficult to assimilate orthoepy?'"
Tatyana Tolstaya (translated by Jamey Gambrell); The Slynx; Houghton Mifflin; 2003.

See more usage examples of orthoepy in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is also a victory to know when to retreat. -Erno Paasilinna, essayist and journalist (1935-2000)

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