Today's Word "Colloquial"
Published in Vocabulary
colloquial \keh-LOK-wi-yehl\ (adjective) - Characteristic of ordinary, informal speech, conversational rather than written speech style.
"As Dr. Peterson was quick to point out, colloquial English was not slang, which characterizes a single group and changes with each generation, nor was it nonstandard."
"Colloquy" comes from Latin colloquium "conversation" from colloqui "to converse" from com- "with" + loqui "speak," also found in "elocution," "grandiloquent," "soliloquy," and "ventriloquy," itself from Latin venter "belly" + loqui "speak" = a belly-speaker. Today's word was abandoned and forgotten by its mother, "colloquy." "Colloquy" originally meant simply "conversation" but today it, and the original Latin "colloquium," refer to the elevated conversations of scholars in an informal conference-like gathering. The adjective, however, survived and grew up, producing its own offspring, "colloquialism," which means a colloquial word or phrase appropriate only for conversation.
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