Reduplication

by Laura on March 3, 2009

in web writing

There are all kinds of little known literary terms. I feel we (as writers) should know them, or at least carry a few up our sleeves to pull out and amaze others upon occasion. I ran into such a term (a word actually) on Dragon Writing Prompts.

Reduplication, in linguistics, is a morphological process by which the root or stem of a word, or part of it, is repeated. Definition from Wikipedia.

Some examples are: artsy-fartsy, razzle-dazzle, hobnob and hocus-pocus.

About the Author

Word Grrls is my mad science experiment, my adventures with fame and world domination (politely). This is where I inspire people to create: invent mutations, cause change, bring colour into your world. Web writer since 1998. Find me on ThatGrrl.ca, Twitter, StumbleUpon , Flickr and Tumblr.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Patricia March 3, 2009 at

loosey goosey? cutie patootie? Does the spelling have to be identical?

admin March 3, 2009 at

I think the spelling does have to be close, but not identical. I’ve been looking for a site with more literary type terms to find more of this. We see things like that and don’t know there is a word for it. Not that I have any hope to remember them all but one or two might sink in.

Leave a Comment

Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree

Previous post:

Next post: