Hope you all had a pleasant and safe Thanksgiving.
You know when you say to someone, “I respect your idea, but . . .,” sometimes you really mean, “What a stupid idea; I would never do that”?
That literary device is called a paranym: A euphemism whose literal meaning is the opposite of what you said. Here are some other paranyms:
- friendly fire – being killed by your side rather than the enemy’s. What is friendly about that?
- eternal life – sounds good, but is death.
- no offense but – I don’t care and you should probably take offense.
Not to be confused with paranym is paronym. Paronyms are words that are written in a similar way to other words, but have different meanings. Here are some examples of paronyms:
- paronym and paranym, coincidentally.
- collusion and collision
- effect and affect
- healthful and healthy
- corroborate and collaborate
- excise and exercise
Likewise, there is a difference between anonym and ananym, another paronym.
An anonyn (from anonymous) is an assumed name to hide one’s real identity. The more common word for this is pseudonym.
Ananyms are interesting. An ananym is a name intentionally spelled backwards to make a new word. It is a special type of anagram. Probably the most well-know ananym is Harpo Productions — a word created to name Oprah’s company — which is Oprah spelled backwards. I could have named my publishing company Enelra, Arlene spelled backwards. But I didn’t.
A dionym is a name, usually in zoology or botany, consisting of two words, such as homo sapiens. Dionym is an uncommon word and cannot be used in Scrabble.
The paronym of dionym is deonym. And deonym, as the name suggests, is a synonym for theonym — the proper name for a god. This definition seems pretty straightforward to me, although I could find nary an example online. I would think Athena, Zeus, Neptune, etc. would be theonyms — and deonyms.
I do not wonder why we use mainly synonym, antonym, homonym, and acronym! Works for me!
Seeking Guest Bloggers
If any of you would like to write a guest post for this blog, please let me know. DO NOT put it in the comments section of the blog, please! Use the contact form on the website. Here are the rules:
- Content must be something my readers would care about. Something to do with grammar, words, language, etc.
- You must be able to write.
- I reserve the right to turn down any submission — and of course edit posts before publishing.
- Post must be interesting.
- Some kind of credentials help.
From the comments you send to me, I know you are a highly intelligent crowd, full of great ideas! If you don’t want to write a guest post — and even if you do — I am also taking ideas for new posts that I can write.
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