A posteriori

PICTOGRAPH: See discussion under ideograph.

PIDGIN: A simplified, limited language combining features from many languages and used among persons who share no common language amongst themselves. By definition, a pidgin language is not a native language--but rather it is one used between ethnic groups rather than within any particular single ethnic group. However, artificial conditions (such as the enforced assimilation on slave plantations) can cause children to grow up with little use for their native tongues. This can cause the pidgin language to develop into a much richer creole.

PIECE-BIEN-FAIT: The French term for the dramatic genre called the "well-made play." See discussion under well-made play.

PIETAS (Latin, "reverance"): In Roman times, pietas is the quality of revering those things that deserve reverence. The word is the source for our modern English word piety and piousness (reverence toward the divine), but the Latin term is far more all-embracing--indicating not only devotion to the gods, but also devotion to one's gens (family) and patria (homeland or country). Thus, it also means patriotism and familial responsibility. In Virgil's Aeneid, one epithet frequently applied to Aeneas is pius Aeneas, implying that Aeneas particularly embodies this quality so valued by the Romans.

PILGRIMAGE: An act of spiritual devotion or penance in which an individual travels without material comforts to a distant holy place. The journey often has spiritual overtones--it may symbolize a journey to the celestial city of heaven or repeat the journey of a saint or biblical hero. Pilgrimage has become a prominent symbol in both Western Christian writings and Middle-Eastern Islamic writings. John Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are two literary examples using the pilgrimage motif.

P'ING HUA: A Chinese yarn or tall tale. The genre typically involves a strong narrative presence and colloquial or idiomatic Chinese. The tone is realistic, but the content is typically fantastic or hyperbolic. Contrast with the Russian skaz.

PIT: In indoor theaters during the Renaissance, the most expensive and prestigious bench seating was the pit--an area directly in front of the stage. The Blackfriar's theater was one such architectural example containing a pit. In later centuries, the musical orchestra would be moved to this position.

PITCH: In linguistics, a semi-musical tone or quality used in some languages to distinguish meaning.

PLACE OF ARTICULATION: The point in the oral cavity where the position of speech organs (lips, teeth, tongue, etc.) is most important for a particular sound.

PLAGIARISM: Accidental or intentional intellectual theft in which a writer, poet, artist, scholar, or student steals an original idea, phrase, or section of writing from someone else and presents this material as his or her own work without indicating the source via appropriate explanation or citation. Click here for more information.

PLATONIC: In common usage, people often use the word "platonic" to mean "intellectual rather than physical." Thus, a Platonic love-affair is one in which the couple is attracted to each other for mental or psychological qualities rather than bodily attributes. More specifically, however, Platonic philosophy is Plato's idea that behind (or above or outside) the imperfect physical world, another intangible world of abstract ideas has its own existence. These abstract-but-perfect ideas (called Platonic forms) appear only as dim outlines (or shadows) in the physical world. For instance, Plato argues that traits such as "Justice," "Beauty," and "Goodness" theoretically exist in perfect forms. Material creatures, who cannot see or enjoy the abstract quality of Beauty itself, can only enjoy specific manifestations of Beauty--such as sunsets or starlight or silvery snow. What the unenlightened do not realize is that it is not these specific objects they should admire, but the quality of beauty behind them--the form of absolute Beauty that is eternal and unchanging even as specific sunsets fade and yearly snowfalls melt away. Because these abstract traits remain eternal even as the physical world changes ever, Plato concludes that the Platonic forms are somehow even more real than the concrete things we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste every day. His breathtaking, nearly mystical conclusion is that the physical world is the illusion or dream, and the world of the mind is closer to the "real" world of the eternal forms.

Platonic thinking profoundly influences Plotinus, Boethius, Saint Augustine, Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, Spenser's "Hymn in Honor of Beauty," Shelley's "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," and Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.