Monday, February 27, 2006

Z-words

How many times a day do you get to use words begining with the letter 'Z', unless you're off to the zoo?

Here's the first word.

zeugma

I picked this up at Pashmina, the Grammatical Puss, who was talking about a cracking line of David Strathairn's in the splendid Good Night, and Good Luck
I have searched my conscience and my files
Zeugma is
A general term describing when one part of speech (most often the main verb, but sometimes a noun) governs two or more other parts of a sentence (often in a series).
So, now you know.

Here's the second word.

Zugzwang

Zugwang describes a situation when someone can only make things worse by moving.

I picked this up from Ronan Bennett's short story in the Observer and also from saturday's CSI: New York, season 2 episode 204, Corporate Warriors.

Now try and use each word in a sentence.

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