A fantastic (fantasmic?) question

[forthright]

An astute Phrontistery reader inquires:

I was wondering if you could help me with a word issue.  I was just reading some stuff on the Internet today and came across pleonasm.  Later on in the article, they used the term "pleonastic".  A look up one m-w.com confirmed that this was a correctly derived form of the word "pleonasm".  Seconds before

Comments

[athelind]

Perhaps "pleonasmic" is a portmanteau: the orgasmic delight in overusing excessive and redundant verbiage.

[forthright]

As often in such cases, Blackadder comes to mind:

Dr. Johnson: Well, I simply observed, sir, that I'm felicitous, since, during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorisation of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue.

Prince George: Well, I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds damn saucy, you lucky thing! I know some fairly liberal-minded girls, but I've never penultimated any of them in a solar sojourn, or, for that matter, been given any Norman tongue!

[arielstarshadow]

I confess to being curious now

[forthright]

Yes, that's right; the complaint against Brown (not just from your friend) is that he used 'symbology' inappropriately to refer to the academic study of symbols, rather than 'semiotics', which is an actual academic discipline. The claim, probably well-justified, is that either Brown or his editor decided that 'symbology' was more transparent in meaning to the sort of person who would read a Dan Brown book.

[burning_purple]

Fascinating!