elision
noun

- The use of a speech form that lacks an initial or final sound found in another form; also, any omission.

- The omission of a vowel or syllable, especially where one word ends and the next begins with a vowel.

- The omission of a vowel, consonant, syllable, or other part in pronunciation or writing.

Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary, Dictionary Com

—

WORD ORIGIN

Elision comes from the Latin ēlīsiō, meaning "a striking out" or "a knocking out." It derives from ēlīdere: ex- ("out") + laedere ("to strike or injure"). Originally the image was physical—something literally knocked away.

By the late sixteenth century English scholars had borrowed the word to describe sounds that disappear during speech. Over time its meaning broadened. Today an editor may make an elision by cutting a paragraph, a filmmaker by skipping twenty years between scenes, or a politician by conveniently leaving out an awkward fact.

Curiously, the word itself illustrates what it describes. Few speakers pronounce every sound in elision with equal force; in rapid speech even that becomes slightly compressed.

—

MIND THE GAP

Most of us think communication is about what's there. Quite often, it's about what's missing.

When native English speakers talk, they constantly drop sounds. Next day becomes “nex day”. Camera becomes “camra”. Family becomes “famly”.

We hardly notice because our brains aren't listening for individual sounds. They're predicting what comes next. The same thing happens outside language.

In films, someone shuts the front door and, in the next scene, steps out in Tokyo. Nobody complains that the flight has been left out. We fill in the gap without thinking.

Memory works much the same way. We don't remember our lives as an unbroken recording. We remember scattered moments and quietly join them together. That's one reason two people can remember the same event rather differently. Both are filling in the spaces.

Leaving things out isn't automatically misleading. If every conversation included every detail, we'd never reach the point. Good speakers, good writers and good filmmakers all know what can safely be skipped.

But elision deserves attention for another reason. Sometimes what isn't said matters more than what is. A report leaves out an awkward number. A politician answers a question without answering it. Once we start noticing elisions, we hear and read differently.


Helga & Paul Smith

—

SYNONYMS

abbreviation, compression, contraction, curtailment, cutting, deletion, dropping, ELISION, ellipsis, omission, reduction, slurring, striking-out, suppression, truncation

—

SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“ELISION — the act of dropping sounds in everyday speech — is a valuable tool for both native English speakers and learners. It allows speech to become more colloquial, resulting in a natural flow of words.”

-----------------------
PLEASE SUPPORT US

On evenings and weekends, I research and write your daily OWAD newsletter together with Helga (my lovely wife and business partner) and our insightful daughter Jennifer. It remains FREE, AD-FREE, and ALIVE thanks to voluntary donations from appreciative readers.

If you aren't already, please consider supporting us — even a small donation, equivalent to just 1-cup-of-coffee a month, would help us in covering expenses for mailing, site-hosting, maintenance, and service.

Just head over to DonorBox:
https://donorbox.org/owad-q4-2023-5

or

Bank transfer:
Paul Smith
IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40

Important: please state as 'Verwendungszweck': "OWAD donation" and the email address used to subscribe to OWAD.

Thanks so much,

Paul Smith
(OWAD Founder)