A Dictionary of Cont..

swollen
lashing than a cane. The old-fashioned English
term birch would be a closer equivalent. Both
switch and cane may be used as noun and verb.
The American rustic exclamation, I’ll be
switched, has no equivalent in England, unless
one accepts I’ll be damned which is used in both
countries but is somewhat stronger than 1’11 be
switched.
Switch is used colloquially in the United
States to mean a change of sides in controversy,
especially in political opinions or allegiances
(Many on whom Taft had counted for support
switched to Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party.
Shivers’ switch to the Republican camp was a
blow to Stevenson’s hopes). Switch has the
further colloquial meaning in America of an
interchanging or the making of a reciprocal
exchange (In the scuffle, Hamlet and Laertes
switch rapiers). In slang, especially in theatrical,
movie, radio and television parlance, a
switch is a reversal of an established, expected
or stereotyped situation or action (But here’s
the switch: it’s the detective who goes to jail.‘).
In gayer moments this is also known as the
switcheroo.
Though both Britons and Americans use
switchback to describe a mountain railroad or
highway having many hairpin curves, only the
English also use switchback to describe what
Americans call a roller coaster.
swollen. See swell.
swore; sworn. See swear.
bwum. See swim.
mung. See swing.
syllabus. The plural is syllabuses or syllabi.
syllepsis; zeugma. Syllepsis is a term in rhetoric
and grammar. It describes a figure of speech by
which a word is used in the same passage to
fulfill two syntactical functions, applying
properly to one person or thing and improperly
to another (as in He fought with fury and a big
blackjack or In his lectures he leaned heavily
upon his desk and stale jokes). Zeugma, which
is really a form of syllepsis, is commonly used
as the word for both figures. Zeugma is a figure
in which a verb is associated with two subjects
or objects, or an adjective with two nouns,
although appropriate to but one of the two, yet
suggests another verb or adjective suitable to
the other noun. Although commonly merely a
fault, zeugma may, once in a great while, be
used intentionally by a skillful writer. One of
the best-known examples is Pope’s comment
on Hampton Court:
Here thou, great ANNA! whom three realms
obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take-and sometimes
Tea.
The last line, however, is no blunder but one
of the felicities of English poetry, not only because
of the perfection of its humorous skill,
but because of its touching suggestion that
Queen Anne herself was a living zeugma, two
unequal things yoked together: by the Grace
of God, Defender of the Faith, Queen of
England, Ireland, and Scotland and, at the same
time, a pathetic, dumpy, dull, lonely, little
woman, sad with her dead babies, bored with
her stupid husband, and far more at home at
the tea than at the council table.
symposium. The plural is symposiums or symposia.
syucluonous; simultaneous; coincident. All of
these adjectives mean existing, living, or occurring
at the same time. Coincident means happening
at the same time (The attack on Pearl Harbor
was coincident with the call of the Japanese
envoys on the Secretary of State). Synchronous
means going on at the same rate and exactly
together, recurring together (The timers in the
gun turrets and in the fire control room were
synchronous). Simultaneous means operating
at the same time or in agreement in the same
point or instant of time (The salvoes from the
two main turrets were simultaneous).
Contemporary and contemporaneous, which
also mean existing at the same time, differ from
synchronous and simultaneous and coincident
in that the time regarding which simultaneity
or azreement is imnlied is indefinite. With
regard to human beings, it may be a lifetime;
with regard to events, it may be an age or an
era. See also contemporary; contemporaneous;
coeval.
synecdoche is a term in rhetoric for a figure of
speech in which a part is named for the whole,
as “sail” for “ship” in a fleet of fifty sail or
“wheel” for “bicycle” in he borrowed his wheel
for a spin out to Zfley. It may name the special
for the general or vice versa, or the whole for
the part. When Robert Frost. the poet, called
himself a “synecdochist,” he meant that in himself
as an individual was figured the common
experience of the race and vice versa.
synouym. A synonym is a word which has the
same or nearly the same meaning as another
word in the language (such as happy and glad)
or a word or expression accepted as another
name for something, as Utopian for ideal.
It is a great mistake, however, to assume
that because words are synonymous at one
point in their meaning they are synonymous
at all points. In addition to their central or
basic meaning, words acquire connotations, or
secondary implied or associated meanings, and
unless they agree in all of these-and few words
d-they are not completely synonymous. Thus
house and home are synonymous in indicating
a dwelling, but their associations differ. House
is the less emotionally weighted of the two
words, suggesting usually no more than a
structure, though it is sometimes used as an
abbreviation of house of ill fame, or, in the
combination big house, for a prison, in which
usages it is strongly opposed to the commonest
meaning of home. Home has commonly the
associations of “a heap o’ living” to make it a
much warmer word than house, but used, as it
often is, as a euphemism for a workhouse or
old folks’ home (They put her in a home in
Milwaukee), it has sad and dismal connotation.%