[59]
To these the
Greeks add μυκτηρισμός or mockery under the
thinnest of disguises.
When we use a number of words to describe something for which one, or at any rate only a few words
of description would suffice, it is called periphrasis,
that is, a circuitous mode of speech. It is sometimes
necessary, being of special service when it conceals
something which would be indecent, if expressed in
so many words: compare the phrase “To meet the
demands of nature” from Sallust.1
1 Presumably from the Histories.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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