Name It

In our Glossary of Grammatical & Rhetorical Terms, you'll find a name for . . .

• Caroline Kennedy's habit of repeating "you know" (138 times in a recent interview with The New York Times): embolalia


• some "jar-dropping" and "mind-bottling" errors of spelling and pronunciation: eggcorns


• that "spontaneous" remark you rehearsed for days: sprezzatura


• your spell checker's whimsical habit of replacing "Barack Obama" with "Burka Abeam," and "inconvenience" with "incontinence": Cupertino effect


• the small talk that often passes for conversation at work: phatic communion


• the trick of using a single adverb--obviously--to "prove" an unsupported claim: boosting


• comedian Stephen Colbert's way of closing his program by thanking "all the people who made this show possible--thank you, Stephen Colbert": illeism

You'll find these and over 500 other language-related words and expressions in our Glossary of Grammatical & Rhetorical Terms.

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