THE GOOD WORD

I cannot speak for otiose and synecdoche . Ratiocinating , however, comes from Edgar Allan Poe, in his criticism of what our less precise generation lumps together as “detective stories”: “These tales of ratiocination owe most of their popularity to being something in a new key . . . (but) where is the ingenuity of unraveling a web that you yourself have woven for the express purpose of unraveling?”

JOY PARNES, SANTA MONICA