Thursday, May 22, 2008

Christening Epizeuxis

Tonight with the installation of emacs, Epizeuxis was born.

Named in the grand literary-device tradition of Lila's electronics, Epizeuxis joins the family founded by Zeugma, and including Synechdoche, Chiasmus, Metonymy, Syllepsis, Irony, and Litotes. (Quine is the oddball in more than mere name.) Their common 'z' is not all that Zeugma and Epizeuxis share; they fill many of the same roles. And since Zeugma is on its second or third life (5+ years and still going -- huzzah for organ donors!), I am optimistic that Epizeuxis -- with its sturdier design -- will easily outlast its grandparent. (A moment of silence for our comrades Chiasmus and Metonymy, whose lives were brutish and short, and Synechdoche, suffering from a chronically dead battery.)

It should be noted that the installation of emacs was crucial. (SimCity alone did not suffice.) Not all of my electronics are worthy of naming; Epizeuxis jumped the queue, leaving three other nameless items cowering, abased in the electronics drawer.

[UPDATE: I am idly considering whether I should set up my swarm of electronics to Twitter. I don't know anyone who uses Twitter, and I don't have the right gadget to read it continuously, but I would be amused if my electronics sent updates "I am now reading a pdf file" to their other electronic friends.]


This post's theme word means "the repetition of a word with no others in between, for vehemence."

2 comments:

masha51 said...

Printers don't merit names?

masha51 said...

This post's theme song - "Show Me" from My Fair Lady.