adoxography
May. 31st, 2024 07:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordadoxography (a-dahk-SAWG-ruh-fee) - n., fine writing on a trivial or base subject.
Or formally it is, though a more accurate definition would be something like rhetorical praise of something of doubtful value -- this being a classic rhetorical exercise for students, but also done for real in for example De Quincey's "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts". The term itself is not so classic, having been coined some time around 1900 in the States, from New Latin adoxus, absurd/paradoxical (coined in 1536 by Erasmus from Ancient Greek ádoxos, inglorious/obscure, itself from a-, not/without + doxa, glory/praise) + -graphy, writing. There is considerable doubt over whether this is a real word -- it hasn't reached the OED, for example -- but Wiktionary lists many examples of its use in the wild, including in scholarly papers.
---L.
Or formally it is, though a more accurate definition would be something like rhetorical praise of something of doubtful value -- this being a classic rhetorical exercise for students, but also done for real in for example De Quincey's "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts". The term itself is not so classic, having been coined some time around 1900 in the States, from New Latin adoxus, absurd/paradoxical (coined in 1536 by Erasmus from Ancient Greek ádoxos, inglorious/obscure, itself from a-, not/without + doxa, glory/praise) + -graphy, writing. There is considerable doubt over whether this is a real word -- it hasn't reached the OED, for example -- but Wiktionary lists many examples of its use in the wild, including in scholarly papers.
---L.
