Wow, Andrew, I think I use Periphrasis all the time. I often say in 1000 words what 10 could say; but I like to be polite! Not necessary here though. I can say it in a short, snappy way: excellent. Thank you for posting. I'm looking forward to your next video, I really look forward to them..... and have a great New Year!
I came here because I am studying a foreign language, and chatGPT told me that this word was the reason why Spanish uses different verbs for specific verb phrases than we use to express the same idea in English I hope you see this comment, but what grammatical term would you use to describe this idea? I will give you an example. In Spanish they do not say “I am 30 years old“ they instead say “I have 30 years“ Initially, the answer that ChatGPT gave me was called “lexical aspect”, but that grammatical term seems too broad.
I'd bet ChatGPT doesn't have a lot of good answers to this question in its training data--the more specialized and technical you get, the less useful it will likely be. The shortest (and truest) answer, though, is that it's just the way it is, and tracking down "whys" in language is often a dead end, like asking why Spanish uses the word "cabeza" instead of "head." It's just because it does. Different languages develop differently and, as linguists often point out, arbitrarily. I can't remember if I mentioned it in the video, but where periphrasis is related to language learning: language learners will often describe something if they don't know the word for it. That periphrasis or circumlocution is meant to fill a gap in their vocabulary. And, you're right--lexical aspect isn't really an answer to your question either.
Speaking of preferring the Anglo Saxon, a review of the brothers Fowler’s The Kings English would be welcome. Maybe someone could do one. Maybe, I don’t know, some professor of English that makes concise, thoughtful RU-vid videos.
