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lit. "the just word"; the right word at the right time. French uses it often in the expression chercher le mot juste (to search for the right word). motif a recurrent thematic element. moue a type of facial expression; pursing together of the lips to indicate dissatisfaction, a pout. See snout reflex. mousse
Modern French allows for fewer word orders than Latin or Old French, both of which Modern French has evolved from. In both Latin and Old French, all six potential word orders are possible: Subject-verb-object (SVO) Verb-object-subject (VOS) Object-subject-verb (OSV) Subject-object-verb (SOV) Object-verb-subject (OVS) Verb-subject-object (VSO)
Generally, words coming from French often retain a higher register than words of Old English origin, and they are considered by some to be more posh, elaborate, sophisticated, or pretentious. However, there are exceptions: weep, groom and stone (from Old English) occupy a slightly higher register than cry, brush and rock (from French).
This held for most of the 20th century until the computer began replacing the typewriter as the primary means of creating text. In the 1990s, style guides reverted to recommending a single-space between sentences. However, instead of a slightly larger sentence space, style guides simply indicated a standard word space.
The modern French language does not have a significant stress accent (as English does) or long and short syllables (as Latin does). This means that the French metric line is generally not determined by the number of beats, but by the number of syllables (see syllabic verse; in the Renaissance, there was a brief attempt to develop a French poetics based on long and short syllables [see "musique ...
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. [2] For example, in the English language , the words begin , start , commence , and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are synonymous .
The buffet style is a variation of the French service in which all of the food is available, at the correct temperature, in a serving space other than the dining table, and guests serve themselves. Buffets can vary from the informal (a gathering of friends in a home, or the serving of brunch at a hotel) to the formal setting of a wedding ...
Elegant variation is the use of synonyms to avoid repetition or add variety. The term was introduced in 1906 by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler in The King's English. In their meaning of the term, they focus particularly on instances when the word being avoided is a noun or its pronoun. Pronouns are themselves variations intended to avoid awkward ...