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"Carry" can be short for "to be armed with a firearm" and "drink" can mean "to drink alcohol". What would this euphemistic type of figure of speech be called?

Raholeun wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 5:31 am "Carry" can be short for "to be armed with a firearm" and "drink" can mean "to drink alcohol". What would this euphemistic type of figure of speech be called?

I would say it's an "elliptical" use of the respective verbs. I wouldn't necessarily call it "euphemistic" though. Most people I know who use "drink" intransitively to mean "drink alcohol" have no reason to be coy; it's simply shorter to say. I assume it's similar for people who frequently "carry". Is someone who says "I don't drive" observing a verbal taboo on motor vehicles or are they just taking advantage of contextual cues?

Perhaps "drink" is closer to your example of "drive" than "carry" is, in that consuming alcohol is by definition a form of drinking and operating a vehicle involves driving. But carrying a gun does not always, or even most of the time, mean one holds the gun in their arms, rather the gun can be tucked away and it would still meet the elliptic definition of "carry".

Raholeun wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 1:44 pmPerhaps "drink" is closer to your example of "drive" than "carry" is, in that consuming alcohol is by definition a form of drinking and operating a vehicle involves driving. But carrying a gun does not always, or even most of the time, mean one holds the gun in their arms, rather the gun can be tucked away and it would still meet the elliptic definition of "carry".

If I say "I'm not carrying any cash", you wouldn't take that to mean that I'm not actually holding any cash in my hands but I still have some on my person in a wallet or a purse. "Carry" has multiple metaphorical extensions which go beyond literally carrying something in one's arms, e.g. "carry insurance", "sound carries", "carry the day", etc. ("Drive" does, too, for that matter; the sense of "direct a motorised vehicle" is a metaphoric extension of directing a horse-drawn vehicle, where the driver had to literally provide the impetus to make the animals move forward. But it's the motor that actual "drives" a car; all a "driver" does is turn it on and steer.)

The point is "carry" is simply a common, uneuphemistic usage for "have a firearm in one's possession". Sometimes it is rather literal, as in the legal term of art "open carry", which refers to openly carrying a firearm on one's person.

Raholeun wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 5:31 am "Carry" can be short for "to be armed with a firearm" and "drink" can mean "to drink alcohol". What would this euphemistic type of figure of speech be called?

This is pretty common: I don't smoke cigarettes, do capybaras bite people?, the client wants to settle the case.

In generative grammar this has been called Object Deletion.

I don't think it's euphemistic; it's just deleting an object that can be easily supplied from the context.

What do you call a piece of clothing that covers the shoulders and the uppermost part of the chest and back, with a cutout for the neck, but that extends a bit beyond the ends of the shoulders on the right and left? Sort of like the shoulder parts of Star Trek: The Next Generation-era Klingon uniforms, or some parts of some types of clerical garments?

Here's what I'm thinking of - sorry about my poor drawing skills:

I think I have heard the word shoulder cape for that, but I am not sure. At least, that's what I'd call it.

The clerical garment is called a pellegrina in English, since it was based on the short capes worn by Slavic pilgrims in the Middle Ages. (For similar reasons, in Catalan it's known as an esclavina.) The variation which isn't open in the front is called a mozzetta. I've never seen anyone wear something like this who wasn't clergy so I don't have another term.

There must be a term for this for women's clothing-- shoulder wrap, shoulder shawl, and shrug come close. The latter usually has sleeves, but in Googling I did see some sleeveless shrugs. A stole or a dupatta can cover this area, but are often longer or more adaptable. There's also an oddity called a sleeveless bolero.

In armor, you may be looking at pauldrons (which cover the upper shoulders) or gorgets (for the neck and below).

A pectoral can be anything from a big necklace to a large item of clothing.

The words "stole" and "shawl" were the first that came to me, but I was unsatisfied with either. I think, in narration, I might simply describe the item and use some internal name for it.

Yeah, I know this may be a gross topic, but how do you refer to nasal mucus?

I refer to dried nasal mucus as "boogers" and mucus that is not dry as "snot".

I have read that in Britain the word "bogey" which is pronounced with the "o" sound in "bone" is used for dried nasal mucus.

I know bogey but I don't think I ever said it and I haven't heard anyone use it for years, since it's a child/teenager word—for all I know it's moribund, since I don't know any children/teenagers to ask what they say nowadays. I don't know that I ever explicitly distinguished between dry and wet stuff-that-comes-out-of-your-nose, but my prototype for snot is definitely wet. I can't think of any other terms for nose gunk.

This reminds me of the game I had for the SNES called Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure. Looking up the manual for that game, they really didn't put much effort into localising it for the English market (despite the developers working in Milton Park, not far from where I now live)—Americanisms include jaywalking (explicitly identified as a crime), sidewalk and loogie, a word which meant absolutely nothing to me as a child.

I thought the no-effort-to-localise-for-English-spoken-outside-the-United-States was fairly normal in video games.

Also, I call the liquid "snot", and use "booger" or "boogie" (a mashup of "booger" and "bogey") for the dry in speech; I'm not sure what I would use in writing.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:33 pm I thought the no-effort-to-localise-for-English-spoken-outside-the-United-States was fairly normal in video games.

Also, I call the liquid "snot", and use "booger" or "boogie" (a mashup of "booger" and "bogey") for the dry in speech; I'm not sure what I would use in writing.

Yeah, "booger" is the most common word for dried nasal mucus in my region, however "boogie" may also be used especially by very young children or in puns.

"How do you make a tissue dance?"

You put a little boogie in it.

What do you collectively call the things that indicate that there is a related endnote, footnote reference? Some of them have fairly well known names, such as asterisk, dagger or double dagger, others are just superscript numerals, and Wikimedia enclose them in superscript square brackets.

I don't think I've ever heard a single word for them, but I might call them "annotation markings" or "annotation marks" if I needed a word off the cuff.

Reference mark maybe?

I think I might've heard that somewhere before.

Do you have a special name for the day after Christmas? And does it vary depending on whether this is a legal/bank holiday or not?

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:24 pm Do you have a special name for the day after Christmas? And does it vary depending on whether this is a legal/bank holiday or not?

I am familiar with it as "Boxing Day" but we don't celebrate it as such here in America (but in my family we drive down to my sister's in the suburbs of Chicago on it instead of Christmas if the weather is poor on Christmas).