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SOMNILOQUY

Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 11:57 pm
by Dr. Goodword
• somniloquy •

Pronunciation: sahm-ni-lê-kwi • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. Talking in your sleep, sleep-talking. 2. What you say when you talk in your sleep.

Notes: This half-amusing Good Word is a member of a large and warm family, despite the fact that my spelling-checker is lighting up this paragraph like a Christmas tree with red lines as I write it. A person who engages in somniloquy is a somniloquist who becomes somniloquent when sleeping. When somniloquists somniloquize, they express themselves in somniloquies in the second meaning of today's word. Although somniloquies usually are soliloquies, be careful not to confuse the two.

In Play: Many people utter words and phrases related to the dreams they have as they sleep. However, a somniloquy can often be even more important than what we say when we are awake. A wife might ask a husband in the morning, "So, who is this 'Eleanor' you mentioned several times in your somniloquy last night?" Don't overlook the other members of this family of words. The same wife might comment, "I'm sleeping much better now that you have become less somniloquent at night."

Word History: Today's Good Word is made from the root of Latin somnus "sleep" + the verb loqui "to speak". Somnus is also responsible for the English words somnambulant "sleep-walking, sleep-walker" and somnolent, the grown-up word for "sleepy". The same Proto-Indo-European root that produced somnus turned up in Greek as hypnos "sleep", which we see at the root of our word, hypnotism. In Russian it became son "sleep or dream". The root of the Latin verb loqui "to talk or speak" is also present in English loquacious "talkative" and eloquent. (Margie Sved was not just talking in her sleep when she nominated this fascinating noun as a Good Word.)

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 9:19 am
by scw1217
I am so glad to know there is a word for this. When I was a young girl, I once spent the night (first time and last) with a girl who did this the entire night. It so creeped me out that I left early the next day and never stayed there again!

On the other hand, many have been the dreams where I called out in my sleep myself. So now looking back, perhaps I should not be the "pot calling the kettle black". However, in my defense, she was talking, carrying on a conversation, not simply crying out in the midst of some dream.

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 4:08 pm
by Stargzer
My father never talked in his sleep; he swore. :shock: 8)

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 7:54 pm
by Brazilian dude
Would that describe him as an insultuloquist* or impropriloquist?

*This one got me thinking, normally you'd have an i there, but I think that i comes from second declension masculine nouns, but insultus, us is a fourth declension noun. Oh well...

Brazilian dude

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 11:53 pm
by Stargzer
That almost sounds like a bad horror movie:
Insultus: The Declension From The Fourth Dimension

Watch as humans are forced to pronounce ancient words ending in us, us, ui, um, u, us, uum, ibus, us, ibus!

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 8:33 pm
by gailr
Close, gzer, but I think you're missing some hype:
Insultus: The Declension From The Fourth Dimension

Watch as humans are forced to pronounce ancient words ending in us, us, ui, um, u, us, uum, ibus, us, ibus!

Scream as they fight to the death over classical wersus Curia pronunchiations!

Thrill as a nimble few survive!

You'll laugh; you'll cry; you'll never use the subjunctive lightly again!
-gailr

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 11:15 pm
by Brazilian dude
Hahaha, wersus is horrible, by the way, no matter what some people may say to try to convince me of the opposite.

Brazilian dude

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 3:49 pm
by Stargzer
Weni, Widi, Wiki!

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 6:38 pm
by Brazilian dude
Wiki to me is something related to Wikipedia.

Brazilian dude