Parallelism: non-literary examples
Our answer for task A - Invented words
"LUPPED"
You will probably have thought that 'lupped' referred to an abrupt
physical action (like 'bit' or 'kneed') which the boy performed on his
tormentors. This is because, although 'lupped' doesn't exist in English,
it is parallel here to 'kicked' and 'scratched'. It is part of a list
of main verbs in the past tense, all of which have 'the angry boy' as
the subject and 'the children making fun of him' as the object. The
parallel grammatical structuring makes us look for a meaning connection,
and in this case quasi-synonymy (or 'roughly the same meaning') seems
to fit the bill.
Another example of parallelism being used to suggest quasi-synonymic
readings is the example from the Bible below:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities
(Isaiah, 53, v)
Because of the grammatical parallelism between the two clauses in the
verse, it is clear that 'wounded' and 'bruised' have similar meanings
to one another and the same can be said for 'transgressions' and 'iniquities'.
So, if you happen not to know one of these words the parallelism can
help you make an informed guess. This is one of the ways in which people
come to understand the meanings of new words.
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