I Love Words: Parlance

Since I've used this word as the root for my made-up blog title, I thought I should probably offer its formal definition and a little explanation as to how I came to name my blog. (Yes, I suppose you could say this ILW post is pretty overdue.)

Word: parlance

Pronunciation: \pär'ləns\

Function: noun

Etymology: Anglo-French, from parler ("to speak")

Date: 1579

Definition: 1. a way or manner of speaking that is natural to native speakers of the language; vernacular; idiom: legal parlance.
2. speech, esp. a formal discussion or debate.
3. mutual discourse; conference

How I Chose My Blog Title: I was interested in blogs because of the interactive writing atmosphere they create, as opposed to what you encounter on static, article-posting sites (ergo, the "mutal discourse/conference" definition of parlance came to mind). I was thinking of that and, at the same time, considering some self-identifying words - among them, freelancer and fencer. Sooo, naturally, 2 and 2 came together pretty quickly (i.e., "meaningful root" + "common suffix" = "just right") to form the equation: parlance + er = Parlancer. Voila! Short and sweet and (hopefully) memorable enough. And, because it's a made-up word, the likelihood of there being another "parlancer" out there was pretty low. At least, I hoped. Luckily, after a quick online search, I found I was right, so I stuck my flag in the word and claimed me some blogger.com blogging real estate with it. And the rest is history . . . or, rather, remains to to be seen . . .