A to Z Day 26: Zeugma

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Zeugma is a fun word to say, and a fairly simple concept, but the explanation is a bit complicated, so I’m borrowing one more definition from Dr. L. Kip Wheeler of Carson-Newman University.

ZEUGMA (Greek “yoking” or “bonding”): Artfully using a single verb to refer to two different objects in an ungrammatical but striking way, or artfully using an adjective to refer to two separate nouns, even though the adjective would logically only be appropriate for one of the two. For instance, in Shakespeare’s Henry V, Fluellen cries, “Kill the boys and the luggage.” (The verb kill normally wouldn’t be applied to luggage, so it counts a zeugma.) If the resulting grammatical construction changes the verb’s initial meaning but is still grammatically correct, the zeugma is sometimes called syllepsis–though in actual practice, most critics use the general term zeugma to include both the grammatical and ungrammatical types interchangeably. Examples of these syllepses and zeugmas abound–particulary in seventeenth-century literature:

“If we don’t hang together, we shall hang separately!” (Ben Franklin).
“The queen of England sometimes takes advice in that chamber, and sometimes tea.”
“. . . losing her heart or her necklace at the ball.” (Alexander Pope).

A to Z Day 25: Yarn

I can’t do any better for a definition of Yarn than Dr. L. Kip Wheeler of Carson-Newman University:

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YARN (Old English gearn): An informal name for a long, rambling story–especially one dealing with adventure or tall-tales. The genre typically involves a strong narrative presence and colloquial or idiomatic English. The tone is realistic, but the content is typically fantastic or hyperbolic. Cf. the Chinese p’ing hua and the Russian skaz.

When I think of yarns, I think of Mark Twain stories, Davy Crockett, and Paul Bunyan. I loved a good yarn as a child — that’s probably one of the sources of my love of stories and storytelling. Here’s what makes a good yarn. It’s a story you tell in conversational language, and you tell it as though it’s true. But at the same time, the actual events you’re narrating are so fantastical that no one could possibly believe them. The effect is usually humor.

Some people limit yarns to campfire stories and shaggy dog stories. Include folk tales in them, so long as they’re long-winded, exaggerated, and use colloquial language. In other words, I don’t think a story necessarily has to be pointless or anti-climactic to qualify as a yarn.

Feel free to drop the titles or links to your favorite yarns, or yarns you’ve written, in the comments in this next-to-last day of the A to Z Challenge.

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A to Z Day 24: Xanaduism

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This was the most difficult day to come up with a topic for, because there just aren’t that many writing terms that begin with X. I went with Xanaduism because the name is derived from a poem I enjoy. Here’s a definition provided by Dr. L. Kip Wheeler of Carson-Newman University.

Academic research that focuses on the sources behind imaginative works of literature and fantasy. John Livingstone Lowes, in his publication The Road to Xanadu (1927), inspired the name, which in turn goes back to Coleridge’s visionary poem “Kubla Khan” (i.e., “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree . . .”). More recently, the term has been used in a pejorative sense to describe scholarship involving dubious scrutiny of amorphous, difficult-to-prove sources, especially simplistic studies lacking any redeeming theoretical perspectives

So, if you write an essay about the orgin of a piece of literature and someone says you’re engaging in Xanaduism, they’re probably not complimenting you on your scholarship. I’ve never actually heard this term used in conversation, and don’t have anything else to say about it.

Since Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” is in the public domain, I’ve included it below for your enjoyment, with another thought or two afterwards. Librivox has several audio recordings of this poem.