Some people take forever to get to the point. Others avoid answering our questions altogether. And then there are some who want to impress us with big words. Today, we have a fairly large word that is quite ironic in and of itself: circumlocution.
Meaning: the use of big words or long-winded explanations to express ideas; giving purposefully confusing or vague explanations.
Origin: from circum- (Latin), meaning “around”, plus locutio (Latin), meaning “speech”.
Example: This example—justifiably long—comes straight out of Yes, Prime Minister (episode: “The Key”, 1986), in which Sir Humphrey Appleby notoriously uses circumlocution to try and get his way:
SIR HUMPHREY APPLEBY: “Prime Minister, I must protest in the strongest possible terms my profound opposition to a newly instituted practice which imposes severe and intolerable restrictions upon the ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and which will, in all probability, should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a constriction of the channels of communication, and culminate in a condition of organisational atrophy and administrative paralysis which will render effectively impossible the coherent and co-ordinated discharge of the function of government within Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
PRIME MINISTER JIM HACKER: “You mean you’ve lost your key?”
I, Nick Marone, science fiction author and owner of this website, on this thirteenth day of October, 2019, hereby solemnly swear that I will never use circumlocution in speech or in writing for any purpose other than to enhance the comedic value of any given slice of prose or dialogue, during which the use of said circumlocution will be so clearly apparent that any reader who reads or listener who hears (but preferably listens) will appreciate the comedic value therein implied, regardless of whether or not the reader or listener actually understood what was written or spoken, or even cared to finish reading or pay attention to hear the entire block of speech. Because of all the circumlocution in this post, my Flesch Reading Ease score is atrocious!