adoxography
Apr. 10th, 2013 07:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordadoxography (ad-ok-SOG-raf-ee) - n., fine writing on a trivial or base subject.
The term was coined in the 19th century from Greek roots (adoxos, inglorious + graphos, writing), but as an exercise in rhetoric has been around since at least the Greeks. Often an exercise for students, especially as an assignment to praise something that is specifically not worthy of praise, but also done for serious as a satirical technique, as with de Quincy's On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts or Erasmus's The Praise of Folly.
---L.
The term was coined in the 19th century from Greek roots (adoxos, inglorious + graphos, writing), but as an exercise in rhetoric has been around since at least the Greeks. Often an exercise for students, especially as an assignment to praise something that is specifically not worthy of praise, but also done for serious as a satirical technique, as with de Quincy's On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts or Erasmus's The Praise of Folly.
---L.
