In the previous installment (4/4/14, here), Geoff Nunberg was looking for a good term to use for a particular class of racially coded vocabularly, for a discussion on public radio: dog whistle, euphemism, whatever. He makes the point that the purpose of this vocabulary is crucial.
On the next day, on ADS-L, from Geoff:
the figure is designed to avoid unambiguously suggesting certain social attitudes to listeners who disapprove of them (as distinct from euphemisns, which enable the speaker to avoid uttering a coextensive term that some listeners find unsavory). “Obliquity” conveys one part of this, and “conivinutation” nicely conveys the other, though neither is a word they would let you use on public radio.
Obliquity, though rare, is not unattested. But conivinutation?
I noted, in puzzlement, on ADS-L that the word is apparently a total neologism, not in any dictionary I could find, or attested on the net. And I didn’t see how to parse/derive it or figure out what it means.
It is indeed a total neologism — attributable, as it turns out, to ADS-Ler W. Brewer, who gives a pronunciation and an entertaining etymology:
[kuh-NIGH-vuh new-TAY-shun], lit. ‘winking & nodding’ <– Latin co:ni:ve:re ‘to wink’ + nu:ta:re ‘to nod’.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. A nice image in the context.
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