Circumlocution: A Valuable Skill

Circumlocution — the use of many words to say something that could be said more clearly and directly by using fewer words (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

The definition above for the word circumlocution carries a negative connotation. People who use unnecessarily wordy and indirect language to avoid getting to the point. We all know those people who do that. But there is an instance where circumlocution can actually be a valuable skill. Rather than thinking about it as refusing to "get to the point", what if you don't know how to get to the point? When one learns a foreign language, one of the most useful skills they could utilize is circumlocution.

In the context of a learning a foreign language, I define circumlocution as using known words to convey an idea that could have been more simply stated using unknown words. In a way, you are "going around the idea" to try to convey that idea. For example, if you are learning the German language and you want to tell someone that you are hungry, but you don't know the word for "hungry", you could say "ich will essen", which means "I want to eat." If you want to eat, common sense says that you are probably hungry, and the same idea you initially wanted to convey is communicated in a different way.

So my father came to the United States from China twenty or so years ago. He was still getting the hang of English. He and his friends stayed at a sketchy motel as they looked for education and a career. Now, at this time, Tom and Jerry was an international success. Given that the show was mostly wordless, it was one American show that my father and his friends could appreciate.

As previously mentioned, the motel was quite sketchy. My father's friend found a mouse in the bath. My father and his friends knew that the motel was sketchy, yet they were still more-or-less shocked to find it there. Naturally, they called the front desk to try to get rid of their pesky problem.

Except there was another problem: no one knew the English word for "mouse".

They must have tried to communicate the idea for several minutes before finally, my father's friend figured out a way to navigate around the road block and use other words that he knew to convey the idea. My father's friend used circumlocution! And mind you, it is one of the most beautiful usages of circumlocution I have ever heard of:

Asking the operator whether she had heard of Tom and Jerry, the operator replied yes, to which my father's friend answered: Jerry is here.