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apophasis: msg#00011

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Subject: apophasis

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The Word of the Day for September 12 is:

apophasis \uh-PAH-fuh-sis\ noun
: the raising of an issue by claiming not to mention it

Example sentence:
"And I won't even mention my opponent's dismal record on environmental
issues," said the candidate, using apophasis to take a jab at her rival.

Did you know?
Apophasis is a sly debater's trick, a way of sneaking an issue into the
discussion while maintaining plausible deniability. It should come as no
surprise, then, that the roots of "apophasis" lie in the concept of denial --
the word was adopted into English from Late Latin, where it means
"repudiation," and derives from the Greek "apophanai," meaning "to deny."
("Apophanai," in turn, comes from "apo-," meaning "away from" or "off," and
"phanai," meaning "to say.") This particular rhetorical stunt is also known by
the labels "preterition" and "paraleipsis" (which is a Greek word for
"omission"), but those words are rarer than "apophasis." Incidentally, don't
confuse "apophasis" with "apophysis"; the latter is a scientific word for an
expanded or projecting part of an organism.








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