>John Lawler writes:
>
>> You're more charitable than I am.  I winced out at "caricatural",
>
>Winced *out*? Is this a new expression? Is there any difference between 
>it and winced?

I have no idea whether it's a 'new expression'; I don't think I've
ever heard it before, but that doesn't make it officially New.  

It's constructed within the parameters of the completive aspectual sense
of "out"; it's a phrasal verb, a "verb-plus-particle" construction
the likes of
     'stress out' [= lose effective control of oneself under
                     stress, and because of it],
     'wink out'   [= be unable to stay awake any longer, no matter *how*
                     interesting the conversation is, nor *how* pressing
                     the social obligation to stay awake may be], and
     'burn out'   [= [lit; of fires] to cease burning, usu. by
                      deprivation of fuel.
                     [met; of humans] lose effective motivation, usu. by
                      deprivation of reward].

I guess I would define 'wince out' as to lose interest in reading further.
I don't know where you're from, but I'm American, and I would expect
most American teenagers to understand exactly what I meant; this is far
from guaranteed elsewhere, however, so I apologize if I confused you.
What did *you* think it might mean?

By the way, if you're interested in looking at phrasal verbs, you might
try George Meyer's dictionary. He actually sat down with an unabridged
dictionary and ran through all the possibilities and if they were
meaningful to him he defined them, and I think pretty well.  Then
there's Dwight Bolinger's work, which is definitive if anything is.  And
some interesting dictionaries; I can recommend the Longmans (and their
other dictionaries as well), but I'm not familiar with the others.

A short informative sketch can also be found in David Crystal's _The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language_ (1995), published by
Guess Which University Press, which is fast becoming my favorite book.
Like the OED, it will be instantly coveted by anyone who finds a.u.e
interesting.

 Meyer, George A.
  The two-word verb : a dictionary of the verb-preposition phrases in
  American English. 1975. The Hague : Mouton. 269 p. (Janua linguarum,
  Series didactica No. 19)

 Spears, Richard A.
  NTC's dictionary of phrasal verbs and other idiomatic verbal phrases.
  1993. Lincolnwood, Ill. : National Textbook Co.  xvii, 873 p. (Series:
  National Textbook language dictionaries)

Cowie, A. P, and R. Mackin.
  Oxford dictionary of phrasal verbs, New ed. 1993. Oxford : Oxford
  University Press. xviii, 517 p.

Courtney, Rosemary.
  Longman dictionary of phrasal verbs. 1983. New York : Longman.
  734p; ill.

Bolinger, Dwight.
  The phrasal verb in English. 1971. Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University
  Press. xviii, 187 p.

Isn't library automation a wonderful thing?

  --------------------------------------------
 -John Lawler                     More grammar
  Linguistics Program   University of Michigan
 "..and, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing."