Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Word of the Week: logorrhea

Since we have been enjoying flexing our vocabulary muscles over the past few weeks, I must add a word of caution to an otherwise delightful and colorful way of expressing yourself! You must remember to exercise some degree of self-restraint in adding these vocabulary words to your everyday conversations, lest you be accused of suffering from an advanced case of logorrhea! Yes, its sad but true. Many a well-intentioned soul has suffered from this conversational affliction!

Logorrhea or logorrhoea comes to us from the Greek language (it can also be seen in similar form in New Latin). For those who travel in some rough and tumble renegade Bible study circles, you will easily recognize the first part our word of the week, Logo (????). Not logo as in advertising, but like logos as in John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word (logos) was with God, and the Word (logos) was God. Can you guess what logos means? Ill bet you can!

The second half of that word is interesting and also familiar, but for different reasons! rrhea is the caboose on this interesting little gem of a word. Without being too indelicate as to the meaning of this fine word ending, let me remind you of a word that you are probably more intimately familiar withthe word is diarrhea! Does that ring any bells? The rrhea portion of this word implies that something is flowing. In the case of our word of the week, the words are flowing fast and furious out of someones mouth! Let me give you the official and brief definition, Excessive talkativeness or wordiness. Thanks dictionary.com! It has also been loosely defined as diarrhea of the mouth! Not only that, but logorrhea can also refer to someones use of excessive amounts of large (sesquipedalian) words that can turn a simple sentence into a complicated mess!

Logorrhea is pronounced \law-guh-REE-uh\, is a noun, and is a nice way of saying that somebody talks too much. (It also has a medical meaning, but well pass on that one for right now.)

You want to see this concept come alive in a sentence? Okay, lets do it! This example from Wikipedia was so good, I just had to use it!

The medical community indicates that a program of downsizing average total daily caloric intake is maximally efficacious in the field of proactive weight-reduction methodologies.

Beautiful, but what does it mean? Heres the translation:

Doctors say that the best way to lose weight is to eat less.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks fun vocabulary word!

Brother Gary Maskell

Pastor, Gurdon First United Methodist Church