Etymology and Colloquialisms

"Nguyen, Thuy Nga & Zuckermann, Ghil‘ad 2012: ‘Stupid as a Coin: Meaning and Rhyming Similes in Vietnamese’, International Journal of Language Studies 6.4.



Stupid as a Coin: Meaning and rhyming similes in Vietnamese

Thuy Nga Nguyen, The University of Queensland, Australia
Ghil'ad Zuckermann, University of Adelaide, Australia


ABSTRACT

Similes emphasise affinities between different objects, and they occur in many cultures. Vietnamese similes can be classified into two types: Meaning Similes and Rhyming Similes. This paper analyses and compares their structure and their semantic and phonetic requirements. It also draws innovative parallels between Vietnamese rhyming similes and Cockney Rhyming Slang, Multisourced Neologization of the Phonetic Matching type, and English, Italian and Israeli euphemisms.


Keywords: Meaning Similes; Rhyming Similes; Vietnamese; Multisourced Neologization; Euphemism; Phonetic Matching



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