Re: Word of the day strikes back
Posted: Thu Jun 24 2021 9:51am
THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2021 - https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/
non sequitur
[ non -sek-wi-ter, -toor ]
noun
something said or written that is unrelated to what immediately precedes.
WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF NON SEQUITUR?
The Latin sentence non sequitur, “it doesn’t follow” in English is used as a noun whose original meaning was “an inference or a conclusion that does not follow from the premises,” i.e., a logical fallacy, a usage established by Cicero in the 1st century b.c. A typical example of such a fallacy is: “If X is true, then Y is true. But Y is true. Therefore, X is true.” Nowadays non sequitur mostly means “a statement containing an illogical conclusion,” especially a conclusion that is amusing, whether intentional or not, or “something said or written that is unrelated to what immediately precedes.”
HOW IS NON SEQUITUR USED?
And who would want to forget, say, “Mr. F’s Aunt,” whose outbursts of demented rage at poor Arthur Clennam in “Little Dorrit” make no sense at all. “There’s milestones on the Dover Road!” “When we lived at Henley, Barnes’s gander was stole by tinkers.” … Mr. F’s Aunt’s malign non sequiturs would be immortal in whatever book Dickens had chosen to insert them.ROBERT GOTTLIEB, "ROBERT GOTTLIEB ON DICKENSWORLD — THE GREAT NOVELIST'S GRAND UNIVERSE," NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 6, 2020
But every day many people find themselves sitting across the table from a negotiation partner they can’t abandon or replace: their kids. How might parents manage these often fraught, exasperating conversations in which their counterpart, lacking self-awareness, sometimes seems to think it strategic to respond with complete non sequiturs?JOE PINSKER, "HOW A NEGOTIATION EXPERT WOULD BARGAIN WITH A KID," THE ATLANTIC, JUNE 13, 2019
non sequitur
[ non -sek-wi-ter, -toor ]
noun
something said or written that is unrelated to what immediately precedes.
WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF NON SEQUITUR?
The Latin sentence non sequitur, “it doesn’t follow” in English is used as a noun whose original meaning was “an inference or a conclusion that does not follow from the premises,” i.e., a logical fallacy, a usage established by Cicero in the 1st century b.c. A typical example of such a fallacy is: “If X is true, then Y is true. But Y is true. Therefore, X is true.” Nowadays non sequitur mostly means “a statement containing an illogical conclusion,” especially a conclusion that is amusing, whether intentional or not, or “something said or written that is unrelated to what immediately precedes.”
HOW IS NON SEQUITUR USED?
And who would want to forget, say, “Mr. F’s Aunt,” whose outbursts of demented rage at poor Arthur Clennam in “Little Dorrit” make no sense at all. “There’s milestones on the Dover Road!” “When we lived at Henley, Barnes’s gander was stole by tinkers.” … Mr. F’s Aunt’s malign non sequiturs would be immortal in whatever book Dickens had chosen to insert them.ROBERT GOTTLIEB, "ROBERT GOTTLIEB ON DICKENSWORLD — THE GREAT NOVELIST'S GRAND UNIVERSE," NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 6, 2020
But every day many people find themselves sitting across the table from a negotiation partner they can’t abandon or replace: their kids. How might parents manage these often fraught, exasperating conversations in which their counterpart, lacking self-awareness, sometimes seems to think it strategic to respond with complete non sequiturs?JOE PINSKER, "HOW A NEGOTIATION EXPERT WOULD BARGAIN WITH A KID," THE ATLANTIC, JUNE 13, 2019