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"distinctio"
Definition: Explicit references to various meanings of a word--usually for the purpose of removing ambiguities. See Euphemisms, Dysphemisms, and Distinctio: Soggy Sweat's Whiskey Speech.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "distinguishing, distinction, difference"
Examples:
- "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 'is' means 'and never has been,' that is one thing. If it means 'there is none,' that was a completely true statement."
(Bill Clinton, Grand Jury testimony, 1998)
- "Don Cognasso will tell you that this commandment prohibits envy, which is certainly an ugly thing. But there's bad envy, which is when your friend has a bicycle and you don't, and you hope he breaks his neck going down a hill, and there's good envy, which is when you want a bike like his and work your butt off to be able to buy one, and it's good envy that makes the world go round. And then there's another envy, which is justice envy, which is when you can't see any reason that a few people have everything and others are dying of hunger. And if you feel this fine sort of envy, which is socialist envy, you get busy trying to make a world in which riches are better distributed."
(Umberto Eco, "The Gorge," in The New Yorker, 7 March 2005)
- "A significant proportion of the detainees held at Guantanamo were picked up far from anything remotely resembling a battlefield. Arrested in cities all over the world, they could only be deemed combatants if one accepts the Bush Administration's claim of a literal 'war on terrorism.' . . . A review of these cases shows that the arresting officers are police, not soldiers, and that the places of arrest include private homes, airports and police stations--not battlefields."
(Joanne Mariner, "It All Depends on What You Mean by Battlefield," FindLaw, July 18, 2006)
Pronunciation: dis-TINK-tee-o
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