Epenthesis & Anaptyxis
Epenthesis and Anaptyxis walked into a bar and confused the hell out of everyone.
This week’s new words are wonderful. Simply wonderful. Or should I say they’re “wonderaful”?
Epenthesis (eh-penth-e-sis) is the adding of a vowel or sound to a word in order to facilitate pronunciation. Like “es-top” or “stop-e(h)”. Or “bu-lue”.
More spectacularly, the addition of the vowel in epenthesis has a specific name: (you guessed it!) anaptyxis (an-app-tu-sis). Think of Yogi Bear telling BooBoo he’s going to get that “pic-a-nic” basket. That’s epenthesis and anaptyxis in action.
What’s even more fun is when Epenthesis and Anaptyxis are out drinking and they run into and are mesmerized by Paragoge. Paragoge also goes by the name Proparalepsis. (Can you tell I love this stuff?)
Paragoge/Proparalepsis “refers to the annexing of an expletive syllable”. In some cases, you can think of it as a nickname for words and, (ed: er…um…) names. Like “Johnny, for John;” “deary, for dear;” “withouten, for without.” (ed: Or my personal favorite “broughten, for brought.”)
When someone asks me “what kind of weirdo are you?” I’m the kind of weirdo who loves this shit. And that’s the honest to God truth. I’m also just a huge ol’ word nerd.
Stay tuned for more words I’ve encountered which have charmed and enchanted me. I have a list. Yeah, an actual list.
Feel free to share words of your own in the comments section.