Figures of speech

enallage

" . . the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt—"Mistah Kurtz—he dead." Joseph Conrad knew that grammatically a verb was required to make a complete sentence, but the line "Mr. Kurtz is dead" would have been neither striking nor memorable. It wouldn't have made the dictionary of quotations and T. S. Eliot wouldn't have used it as the epigraph for "The Hollow Men." Heart of Darkness is 39,000 words long, but everybody remembers those four. It's the bad grammar what makes the phrase. That enallage." Excerpt From: Mark Forsyth. "The Elements of Eloquence." iBooks. "Let us go then, you and I" (Eliot's Prufrock) Let I go?

Epizeuxis

"Epizeuxis (pronounced ep-ee-ZOOX-is) is repeating a word immediately in exactly the same sense. Simple. Simple. Simple. "

Russian reversal

"Every country has its own mafia;" "In Russia, the mafia has its own country." — Garry Kasparov [5] "In America, you can always find a party." "In Soviet Russia, party can always find you!" A Russian reversal is an example of both an antimetabole and a transpositional pun.

syllepsis

"Here Thou, great Anna! whom three Realms obey, Dost sometimes Counsel take - and sometimes Tea." Al. Pope She came in high spirits and a Cadillac. She cribbed the baby and then the corn. She lowered her standards by raising her glass, Her courage, her eyes and his hopes. - Flanders and Swann

tautophrase

"I am that I am." (God, Exodus 3:14) "What's done is done." (Shakespeare's Macbeth) "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." (John Wayne) "Facts are facts." a phrase or sentence that repeats an idea in the same words.

Polyptoton

"Please Please Me" " from the Greek for "many cases," " "All You Need is Love"5 is pretty much polyptoton beginning to end: Nothing you can do that can't be done Nothing you can sing that can't be sung" "Juliet's dad tell her: Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds." Not only is the judge not judicial, but the arbiter is not even arbitrary. Judge not, that ye be not judged — Matthew 7:1[3]

sibilance,

"Sister Suzy sewing socks for soldiers"

paraprosdokian

"Take my wife—please!" —Henny Youngman[10] "If I could just say a few words... I'd be a better public speaker." —Homer Simpson[11] "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." —Groucho Marx[14] "A modest man, who has much to be modest about." —Winston Churchill[14] "I sleep eight hours a day and at least ten at night." "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." "On the other hand, you have different fingers." is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part

antanaclasis

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" (garden path sentence ) Although we're apart, you're still a part of me. We make the traveler's lot a lot easier.

Isocolon

"Two clauses that are grammatically parallel, two sentences that are structurally the same." "Roses are red. Violets are blue."

antimetabole

"Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno" "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, Party always finds you!" Yakov Smirnoff (Russian reversal) "Plan your dive, dive your plan." - Scuba divers' mantra[4] Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure. - Lord Byron, in Don Juan, 1824)[5] antimetabole, in which the reversal in structure involves the same words: Both chiasmus and antimetabole can be used to reinforce antithesis.[6] In chiasmus, the clauses display inverted parallelism. Chiasmus was particularly popular in the literature of the ancient world, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, where it was used to articulate the balance of order within the text. For example, many long and complex chiasmi have been found in Shakespeare[7] and the Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible.[8] It is also found throughout the Book of Mormon[9] and the Quran.[10]

Tropes

(from the Greek trepein, to turn) change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").

tautology

(from Greek ταὐτός, "the same" and λόγος, "word/idea") is an argument which repeats an assertion using different phrasing. The proposition, as stated, is thus logically irrefutable, while obscuring the lack of evidence or valid reasoning supporting the stated conclusion.

Schemes

(from the Greek schēma, form or shape) are figures of speech that change the ordinary or expected pattern of words.

11 figures of speech involving repetition

1. Antanaclasis 2. Epizeuxis 3. Conduplicatio 4. Anadiplosis 5. Anaphora 6 .Epistrophe 7. Mesodiplosis 8. Diaphora 9. Epanalepsis 10. Diacope 11. Ploce

Apostrophe

A figure of speech in which a speaker turns from the audience to address an absent person or abstract idea. It differs from a soliloquy in that the speaker of an apostrophe need not be alone on the stage The apostrophe also figures prominently in lyric poetry, as in William Blake's "Tyger": Tyger, tyger, burning bright In the forest of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Chiasmus

By day the frolic, and the dance by night. - Samuel Johnson, "The Vanity of Human Wishes" (1794 )[3] Despised, if ugly; if she's fair, betrayed. - Mary Leapor, "Essay on Woman" (1751)[4] "crossing", from the Greek χιάζω, chiázō, "to shape like the letter Χ") "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses - but no repetition of words". Both chiasmus and antimetabole can be used to reinforce antithesis.[6] In chiasmus, the clauses display inverted parallelism. Chiasmus was particularly popular in the literature of the ancient world, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, where it was used to articulate the balance of order within the text. For example, many long and complex chiasmi have been found in Shakespeare[7] and the Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible.[8] It is also found throughout the Book of Mormon[9] and the Quran.[10]

In America, you tip the messenger. In Mother Russia, messenger tips you

Chiasm: repetition of structure Antimetabole: Chiasm with word repetition Antanaclasis: word repetition with meaning change

Conceptual chiasmus

Chiasmus can be used in the structure of entire passages to parallel concepts or ideas. This process, termed "conceptual chiasmus", uses a criss-crossing rhetorical structure to cause an overlapping of "intellectual space".[11] Conceptual chiasmus utilizes specific linguistic choices, often metaphors, to create a connection between two differing disciplines.[11] By employing a chiastic structure to a single presented concept, rhetors encourage one area of thought to consider an opposing area's perspective.

Transpositional pun

Hangovers: The wrath of grapes. Feudalism: It's your count that votes! ("It's your vote that counts!") Trophies: the memory of persistence (Dali's The Persistence of Memory) difficult to create challenging to comprehend It involves transposing the words in a well-known phrase or saying to get a daffynition-like clever redefinition of a well-known word unrelated to the original phrase.

Epanalepsis

History is ours and people make history. (S. Allende) The king is dead; long live the king. Severe to his servants; to his children, severe.

Oxymoron

O brawling love! O loving hate! O heavy lightness, serious vanity! cold fire, sick health! a rhetorical device that uses an ostensible self-contradiction to illustrate a rhetorical point or to reveal a paradox. A more general meaning of "contradiction in terms" (not necessarily for rhetoric effect) is recorded by the OED for 1902. autological word from the Greek ὀξύς oksús "sharp, keen, pointed"[5] and μωρός mōros "dull, stupid, foolish";[6] as it were, "sharp-dull", "keenly stupid", or "pointedly foolish

amphibology

Syntactic ambiguity arises not from the range of meanings of single words, but from the relationship between the words and clauses of a sentence, and the sentence structure underlying the word order therein. John saw the man on the mountain with a telescope. British left waffles on Falklands (Did the British leave waffles behind, or is there waffling by the British political left wing about Falklands?) Somali Tied to Militants Held on U.S. Ship for Months Landmine claims dog arms company Competition-based models hold that differing syntactic analyses rival each other during syntactic ambiguity resolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_ambiguity

Anaphora

What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? — William Blake, The Tyger Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition! — William Shakespeare, King John, II, I It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Anadiplosis

Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.

garden path sentence

amphibology a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that a reader's most likely interpretation will be incorrect the reader is lured into a parse that turns out to be a dead end or yields a clearly unintended meaning "Garden path" refers to the saying "to be led down [or up] the garden path", meaning to be deceived, tricked, or seduced. "The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families." (The complex provides shelter for the soldiers) Syntactic ambiguity arises not from the range of meanings of single words, but from the relationship between the words and clauses of a sentence, and the sentence structure underlying the word order therein.

Ploce

is a figure of speech in which a word is separated or repeated by way of emphasis;[1] the repetition of a word functions as a different part of speech or in different contexts. "In that great victory, Caesar was Caesar!" "Make war upon themselves - brother to brother / Blood to blood, self against self." - Richard III, by Shakespeare

An Einstein

is an example of synecdoche, as it uses a particular name to represent a class of people: geniuses.

Synchysis

rhetorical technique wherein words are intentionally scattered to create bewilderment "I run and shoot, fast and accurate." "Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear" - Alexander Pope, "Epistle II. To a Lady" (1743) "When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep, Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep" - Alexander Pope, Essay on Man. That is, "When earthquakes swallow towns to one grave, or when tempests sweep whole nations to the deep". A synchysis may be opposed to chiasmus, which is a phrase in the form A-B-B-A, either in the same line or in two consecutive lines.