circumlocution

• “It comes to the same thing, no doubt, but the circumlocution is significant.”

  Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

• “Another unnecessary use of words and phrases is that which is termed circumlocution, a going around the bush when there is no occasion for it, -- save to fill space.”

  How to Speak and Write Correctly

• “His circumlocution was a suave way of stating that he had done all that could be expected of a neighbor and benevolent friend, and that the ordinary relation of broker and customer ought now be established.”

  Unleavened Bread

• “I was a rich heiress -- I had, I believe, a hundred thousand pounds, or more, and twice as many caprices: I was handsome and witty -- or, to speak with that kind of circumlocution which is called humility, the world, the partial world, thought me a beauty and a bel-esprit.”

  Tales and Novels — Volume 03

• “I was a rich heiress – I had, I believe, a hundred thousand pounds, or more, and twice as many caprices: I was handsome and witty – or, to speak with that kind of circumlocution which is called humility, the world, the partial world, thought me a beauty and a bel-esprit.”

  Belinda

• ““Partial” birth and post-birth abortions are, de facto, equivalent to infanticide, to suggest otherwise or to elide that fact via circumlocution or other semantic finessing is precisely that, evasion.”

  The Volokh Conspiracy » The “Racist” Charge

• “Some words get translated using circumlocution: a scanner (or scanner in Italian), as in a flatbed scanner, is an apparatus opticus et electronicus ad legendam imaginem: an optical and electronic device for reading images.”

  The Vatican’s Dictionary of Recent Latinity « The Half-Baked Maker

• “All along she has been, notwithstanding the weaselly circumlocution 'cleared by the Commons Authorities', effectively looting the public purse to maintain her family home.”

  Home is where the heart is, Home Secretary

• “The present shiftiness, circumlocution and evasion is doing the party nothing but harm.”

  A Cowardly Lack Of National Leadership

• “Whilst Ronspeak comes with a certain level of corporate cliche, and its use of prosaic circumlocution can be irritating to some, the scale of Ron's achievement in the most competitive business in the world, bestows upon his utterances a sense of weight and solemnity, perhaps in the same way that the Higgs field purportedly bestows mass upon electrons and quarks.”

  Archive 2009-01-01

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