Terence, I fear the O-T police are about to swoop in... On Monday 27 December 2004 07:25, Terence McCarthy wrote:
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I really feel incapable of commenting on this non-sense, except to say "diction" is about pronunciation, not writing, ...
Wrong. "Diction" is about choice of words (note its similarity to "dictionary"). It is a common misnomer to equate it to enunciation. To wit (from the on-line Webster's Unabridged 1913 dictionary): "Diction \Dic"tion\, n. [L. dicto a saying, a word, fr. dicere, dictum, to say; akin to dicare to proclaim, and to E. teach, token: cf. F. diction. See Teach, and cf. Benison, Dedicate, Index, Judge, Preach, Vengeance.] Choice of words for the expression of ideas; the construction, disposition, and application of words in discourse, with regard to clearness, accuracy, variety, etc.; mode of expression; language; as, the diction of Chaucer's poems." WordNet's definition reflects the newer confused usage as well as the classic definition: "diction n 1: the articulation of speech regarded from the point of view of its intelligibility to the audience [syn: enunciation] 2: the manner in which something is expressed in words; "use concise military verbiage"- G.S.Patton [syn: wording, phrasing, phraseology, choice of words, verbiage]"
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Terence
Randall Schulz