different between metasyntactic vs whatchamacallit

English

Etymology

meta- +? syntactic

Adjective

metasyntactic (not comparable)

1. (linguistics, computing) Used in describing syntax; relating to metasyntax.
   • 2001, John N. Shutt in What is Grammar?

     Metasyntactic values, in the sense I'm using here, are descriptive of syntax, as for example the nonterminals of a Chomsky grammar.

Related terms

• metasyntactic variable

English

Etymology

A shortened version of “what you may call it” or “what you might call it”. United States, 20th century (recorded in 1921).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?w?t??m?k??l?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /???t??m?k?l?t/, /?w?t-/, /?w?t?m?k?l?t/
• Hyphenation: what?cha?ma?call?it

Noun

whatchamacallit (plural whatchamacallits)

1. (slang) A metasyntactic term used for any object whose actual name the speaker does not know or cannot remember; a doodad, gizmo, thingamajig, thingy.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:thingy

Translations

Further reading

• whatchamacallit (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia