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Anonymous Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

An elliptical young man...

While I was in high school, my English teacher randomly met up with my older sister whom she had known as a student a decade earlier. This English teacher, talking about me, said "He's elliptical."

From time to time I think about this comment and still cannot understand what she could have possibly meant by this.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
The Elliptical One
  

Top answer

g. in discussions, essays). Or perhaps you were strangely shaped.

— MrPedantic

  • g.
  • in discussions, essays).
  • Or perhaps you were strangely shaped.
  • Or perhaps she just liked the sound of the word, and had no idea what it meant.
  • ) MrP
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3 Answers
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Perhaps she meant that you had a habit of hopping from X to Z without passing through Y (e.g. in discussions, essays).

Or perhaps you were strangely shaped.

Or perhaps she just liked the sound of the word, and had no idea what it meant.

(But why not google her up and ask her?)

MrP
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Is there any chance that she meant to say 'eclectic' instead of 'elliptical'? I was wondering that because some Italians make this mistake between the 2 Italian words, which are very similar each other (= 'eclettico 'and 'ellittico')
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From Greek elleiptikos defective, marked by ellipsis, from elleipein
1: of, relating to, or shaped like an ellipse 2 a: of, relating to, or marked by ellipsis or an ellipsis b (1): of, relating to, or marked by extreme economy of speech or writing (2): of or relating to deliberate obscurity (as of literary or conversational style)

So defectiv
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