Zeugma

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1. Oddly enough – and maybe not so oddly, considering Czech is a “fusional” language in which many words’ endings change in accordance with their position in the sentence – in my language the meaning of “zeugma” is slightly different. It describes what is essentially a mistake, meaning you use it to “save” one form of the noun in question where they should be two different forms because the two different verbs require it. As in, “I saw and talked to Paul” would be “viděl jsem Paula a mluvil s ním (s Paulem)” (literally “I saw Paul and talked to him / Paul”) in correct Czech, but you can frequently hear a zeugma along the lines of “viděl jsem a mluvil s Paulem.”

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