postilion sentence

English

Etymology

Refers to the phrase "My postillion has been struck by lightning," said to be an example of the unusual terms found in some 19th- and early 20th-century phrasebooks.

Noun

postilion sentence (plural postilion sentences)

1. (linguistics) A phrase that is linguistically correct, but of no realistically practical use.
   • 1990, Jack Matthews, Memoirs of a Bookman, Ohio University Press, page 115:

     As good as the peccadillo sentence is, it is not on a par with the postilion sentence. Nothing is. That sentence is cast in golden moonshine and should never be disturbed.

   • 1995, David Crystal, “Postilion Sentences”, in Journal of Clinical Speech and Language Studies, volume 5, page 15:

     To test whether a candidate sentence is a postilion sentence, all we have to do is try to identify the context(s) in which it would be used. If we have difficulty finding a plausible context, then we have such a sentence.

   • 2004, Margaret M. Leahy, “Therapy Talk: Analyzing Therapeutic Discourse”, in Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in School, volume 35, page 77:

     In the practice sentence, C emulates P’s model and provides another model or postilion sentence.