FIGURES OF SPEECH

accumulation: Accumulating arguments in a concise forceful manner.

adnomination: Repetition of words with the same root word.
alliteration: Series of words that begin with the same consonant.
adynaton: hyperbole taken to such extreme lengths insinuating a complete impossibility.
anacoluthon: Wording ignoring syntax achieved with the help of transposing clauses within a
sentence.
anadiplosis: Repetition of a word at the end of a clause at the beginning of another.
anaphora: Repetition of the same word or group of words in a paragraph.
anastrophe: Changing the object, subject and verb order in a clause.
anticlimax: An abrupt descent (either deliberate or unintended) on the part of a speaker or writer
from the dignity of idea which he appeared to be aiming at.
antanaclasis Repetition of a single word, but with different meanings.
anthimeria: Transformation of a word of a certain word class to another word class.
antimetabole: Repetition of words in successive clauses, in reverse order.
antirrhesis: Disproving an opponents argument.
antistrophe: Repetition of the same word or group of words in a paragraph.
antithesis: Juxtaposition of opposing or contrasting ideas.
aphorismus: Statement that calls into question the definition of a word.
aposiopesis: Breaking off or pausing speech for dramatic or emotional effect.
apposition: Placing of two statements side by side, in which the second defines the first.
assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds.
asteismus: Mocking answer or humorous answer that plays on a word.
asterismos: Beginning a segment of speech with an exclamatory word.
asyndeton: Omission of conjunctions between related clauses.
cacophony: Juxtaposition of words producing a harsh sound
cataphora: Co-reference of one expression with another expression which follows it (example: If
you need one, there's a towel in the top drawer.)
classification: Linking a proper noun and a common noun with an article
chiasmus: Repetition of words in successive clauses, in reverse order
climax: Arrangement of words in order of increasing importance
commoratio: Repetition of an idea, re-worded
conduplicatio: Repetition of a key word
Conversion (word formation): An unaltered transformation of a word of one word class into
another word class
consonance: Repetition of consonant sounds, most commonly within a short passage of verse
dubitatio: Expressing doubt and uncertainty about oneself
dystmesis: A synonym for tmesis
ellipsis: Omission of words
elision: Exclusion of a letter from a word or phrase
enallage: Changing the grammatical form of a word, but not its meaning
enjambment: Breaking of a syntactic unit (a phrase, clause, or sentence) by the end of a line or
between two verses
enthymeme: An informal syllogism
epanalepsis: Repetition of the initial word or words of a clause or sentence at the end of the clause
or sentence
epanodos: Repetition of a word or several words.
[6][7][8]

epistrophe: (also known as antistrophe) Repetition of the same word or group of words at the end
of successive clauses. The counterpart of anaphora
epizeuxis Repetition of a single word, with no other words in between
euphony: Opposite of cacophony - i.e. pleasant sounding
half rhyme: Partially rhyming words
hendiadys: Use of two nouns to express an idea when the normal structure would be a noun and
an adjective or noun functioning as an adjective
hendiatris: Use of three nouns to express one idea
homeoptoton: ending the last words of a distinct part of the speech with the same syllable or
letter.
[9]

homographs: Words that are identical in spelling but different in origin and meaning
homoioteleuton: Multiple words with the same ending
homonyms: Words that are identical with each other in pronunciation and spelling, but differing in
origin and meaning
homophones: Words that are identical with each other in pronunciation, but differing in spelling,
origin and meaning
homeoteleuton: Words with the same suffix
hypallage: An abnormal, unexpected change of two segments in a sentence.
[10]

hyperbaton: Two ordinary assosciated words are detached.
[11][12]
The term may also be used more
generally for all different figures of speech which transpose natural word order in
sentences.
[12]
* hyperbole: Exaggeration of a statement
hypozeuxis Every clause having its own independent subject and predicate
hysteron proteron: The inversion of the usual temporal or causal order between two elements
isocolon: Use of parallel structures of the same length in successive clauses
internal rhyme: Using two or more rhyming words in the same sentence
kenning: Using a compound word neologism to form a metonym
merism: Referring to a whole by enumerating some of its parts
mimesis: Imitation of a person's speech or writing
onomatopoeia: Word that imitates a real sound (e.g. tick-tock or boom)
paradiastole: Repetition of the disjunctive pair "neither" and "nor"
parallelism: The use of similar structures in two or more clauses
paraprosdokian: Unexpected ending or truncation of a clause
parenthesis: A parenthetical entry
paroemion: Alliteration in which every word in a sentence or phrase begins with the same letter
parrhesia: Speaking openly or boldly, in a situation where it is unexpected (i.e. politics)
pleonasm: The use of additional words than are needed to express meaning
polyptoton: Repetition of words derived from the same root
polysyndeton: Close repetition of conjunctions
pun: When a word or phrase is used in two(or more) different senses
rhythm: A synonym for parallelism
[13]

sibilance: Repetition of letter 's', it is a form of alliteration
sine dicendo: A statement that is so obvious it need not be stated, and if stated, it seems almost
pointless (e.g. 'It's always in the last place you look.')
solecism: Trespassing grammatical and syntactical rules
spoonerism: Switching place of syllables within two words in a sentence yielding amusement
superlative: Declaring something the best within its class i.e. the ugliest, the most precious
synathroesmus: Agglomeration of adjectives to describe something or someone
syncope: Omission of parts of a word or phrase
symploce: Simultaneous use of anaphora and epistrophe: the repetition of the same word or group
of words at the beginning and the end of successive clauses
synchysis: Words that are intentionally scattered to create perplexment
synesis: Agreement of words according to the sense, and not the grammatical form
synecdoche: Referring to a part by its whole or vice versa
synonymia: Use of two or more synonyms in the same clause or sentence
tautology: Redundancy due to superfluous qualification; saying the same thing twice
tmesis: Insertions of content within a compound word
zeugma: The using of one verb for two or more actions
Tropes[edit]
Main article: Trope (linguistics)
accismus: expressing the want of something by denying it
[14]

allegory: Extended metaphor in which a symbolic story is told
allusion: Covert reference to another work of literature or art
ambiguity: Phrasing which can have two meanings
anacoenosis: Posing a question to an audience, often with the implication that it shares a common
interest with the speaker
analogy A comparison
anapodoton: Leaving a common known saying unfinished
antanaclasis: A form of pun in which a word is repeated in two different senses
anthimeria: Transformating a word's word class
anthropomorphism: Ascribing human characteristics to something that is not human, such as an
animal or a god (see zoomorphism)
antimetabole: Repetition of words in successive clauses, but in switched order
antiphrasis: A name or a phrase used ironically.
antistasis: Repetition of a word in a different sense.
antonomasia: Substitution of a proper name for a phrase or vice versa
aphorism: Briefly phrased, easily memorable statement of a truth or opinion, an adage
apologia: Justifying one's actions
aporia: Faked or sincere puzzled questioning
apophasis: (Invoking) an idea by denying its (invocation)
appositive: Insertion of a parenthetical entry
apostrophe: Directing the attention away from the audience to an absent third party, often in the
form of a personified abstraction or inanimate object.
archaism: Use of an obsolete, archaic, word (a word used in olden language, e.g. Shakespeare's
language)
auxesis: Form of hyperbole, in which a more important sounding word is used in place of a more
descriptive term
bathos: Pompous speech with a ludicrously mundane worded anti-climax
burlesque metaphor: An amusing, overstated or grotesque comparison or examplification.
catachresis: Blatant misuse of words or phrases.
categoria: Candidly revealing an opponent's weakness
clich: Overused phrase or theme
circumlocution: Talking around a topic by substituting or adding words, as
in euphemism or periphrasis
commiseration: Evoking pity in the audience
congeries: Accumulation of synonymous or different words or phrases together forming a single
message
correctio: Linguistic device used for correcting one's mistakes, a form of which is epanorthosis
dehortatio: discouraging advice given with seeming sagacity
denominatio: Another word for metonymy
diatyposis: The act of giving counsel
double negative: Grammar construction that can be used as an expression and it is the repetition of
negative words
dirimens copulatio: Juxtaposition of two ideas with a similar message
distinctio: Defining or specifying the meaning of a word or phrase you use
dysphemism: Substitution of a harsher, more offensive, or more disagreeable term for another.
Opposite of euphemism
dubitatio: Expressing doubt over one's ability to hold speeches, or doubt over other ability
ekphrasis: Lively describing something you see, often a painting
epanorthosis: Immediate and emphatic self-correction, often following a slip of the tongue
encomium: A speech consisting of praise; a eulogy
enumeratio: A sort of amplification and accumulation in which specific aspects are added up to
make a point
epicrisis: Mentioning a saying and then commenting on it
epiplexis: Rhetorical question displaying disapproval or debunks
epitrope: Initially pretending to agree with an opposing debater or invite one to do something
erotema: Synonym for rhetorical question
erotesis: Rhetorical question expressing approvement or refusal of belief in
euphemism: Substitution of a less offensive or more agreeable term for another
grandiloquence: Pompous speech
exclamation: A loud calling or crying out
Invective: The act of insulting
humour: Provoking laughter and providing amusement
hyperbaton: Words that naturally belong together are separated from each other for emphasis or
effect
hyperbole: Use of exaggerated terms for emphasis
hypocatastasis: An implication or declaration of resemblance that does not directly name both
terms
hypophora: Answering one's own rhetorical question at length
hysteron proteron: Reversal of anticipated order of events; a form of hyperbaton
innuendo: Having a hidden meaning in a sentence that makes sense whether it is detected or not
inversion: A reversal of normal word order, especially the placement of a verb ahead of the subject
(subject-verb inversion).
imperative sentence: The urging to do something
irony: Use of word in a way that conveys a meaning opposite to its usual meaning
kataphora: Repetition of a cohesive device at the end
litotes: Emphasizing the magnitude of a statement by denying its opposite
malapropism: Using a word through confusion with a word that sounds similar
meiosis: Use of understatement, usually to diminish the importance of something
merism: Referring to a whole by enumerating some of its parts
metalepsis: Figurative speech is used in a new context
metaphor: Figurative language
metonymy: A thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of something
associated in meaning with that thing or concept
neologism: The use of a word or term that has recently been created, or has been in use for a short
time. Opposite of archaism
non sequitur: Statement that bears no relationship to the context preceding
occupatio Mentioning something by reportedly not mentioning it
onomatopoeia: Words that sound like their meaning
oxymoron: Using two terms together, that normally contradict each other
par'hyponoian: Replacing in a phrase or text a second part, that would have been logically
expected.
parable: Extended metaphor told as an anecdote to illustrate or teach a moral lesson
paradiastole: Making a euphemism out of what usually is considered adversive
paradox: Use of apparently contradictory ideas to point out some underlying truth
paradiastole: Extenuating a vice in order to flatter or soothe
paraprosdokian: Phrase in which the latter part causes a rethinking or reframing of the beginning
paralipsis: Drawing attention to something while pretending to pass it over
parody: Humouristic imitation
paronomasia: Pun, in which similair sounding words but words having a different meaning are used
pathetic fallacy: Ascribing human conduct and feelings to nature
periphrasis: A synonym for circumlocution
personification/prosopopoeia/anthropomorphism: Attributing or applying human qualities to
inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena
pleonasm: The use of more words than is necessary for clear expression
praeteritio: Another word for paralipsis
procatalepsis: Refuting anticipated objections as part of the main argument
proslepsis: Extreme form of paralipsis in which the speaker provides great detail while feigning to
pass over a topic
prothesis: Adding a syllable to the beginning of a word
proverb: Succinct or pithy, often metaphorical, expression of wisdom commonly believed to be
true
pun: Play on words that will have two meanings
rhetorical question: Asking a question as a way of asserting something. Asking a question which
already has the answer hidden in it. Or asking a question not for the sake of getting an answer but
for asserting something (or as in a poem for creating a poetic effect)
satire: Humoristic criticism of society
sensory detail imagery: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell
sesquipedalianism: use of long and obscure words
simile: Comparison between two things using like or as
snowclone: Alteration of clich or phrasal template
style: how information is presented
superlative: Saying that something is the best of something or has the most of some quality, e.g.
the ugliest, the most precious etc.
syllepsis: The use of a word in its figurative and literal sense at the same time or where a single
word is used in relation to two other parts of a sentence although the word grammatically or
logically applies to only one
syncatabasis (condescension, accommodation): adaptation of style to the level of the audience
synchoresis: Giving an impression of impartiality
synecdoche: Form of metonymy, referring to a part by its whole, or a whole by its part
synesthesia: Description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe
another.
tautology: Superflous repetition of the same sense in different words Example: The children
gathered in a round circle
transferred epithet: A synonym for hypallage.
truism: a self-evident statement
tricolon diminuens: Combination of three elements, each decreasing in size
tricolon crescens: Combination of three elements, each increasing in size
verbal paradox: Paradox specified to language
zeugma: Use of a single verb to describe two or more actions
zoomorphism: Applying animal characteristics to humans or gods

ANAPHORA
Definition:
A rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
By building toward a climax, anaphora can create a strong emotional effect. Adjective: anaphoric.
Compare with epiphora andepistrophe.

EXAMPLES
"We learned to 'diagram' sentences with the solemn precision of scientists articulating
chemical equations. We learned to read by reading aloud, and we learned to spell by
spelling aloud."
(Joyce Carol Oates, "District School #7: Niagara County, New York." Faith of a Writer: Life,
Craft, Art. HarperCollins, 2003)
"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in
the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."
(Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940)
"It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all
over the place."
(Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, 1951)
"Anaphora will repeat an opening phrase or word;
Anaphora will pour it into a mould (absurd)!
Anaphora will cast each subsequent opening;
Anaphora will last until it's tiring."
(John Hollander, Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse. Yale Univ. Press, 1989)
"Here comes the shadow not looking where it is going,
And the whole night will fall; it is time.
Here comes the little wind which the hour
Drags with it everywhere like an empty wagon through leaves.
Here comes my ignorance shuffling after them
Asking them what they are doing."
(W.S. Merwin, "Sire." The Second Four Books of Poems. Copper Canyon Press, 1993)
"Sir Walter Raleigh. Good food. Good cheer. Good times."
(slogan of the Sir Walter Raleigh Inn Restaurant, Maryland)
"We saw the bruised children of these fathers clump onto our school bus, we
saw theabandoned children huddle in the pews at church, we saw the stunned and
battered mothers begging for help at our doors."
(Scott Russell Sanders, "Under the Influence," 1989)
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
(Rick Blaine in Casablanca)
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and
oceans,we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we
shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall
fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall
fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
(Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940)
"Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems
which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals
for the inspection and control of arms, and bring the absolute power to destroy other
nations under the absolute control of all nations.
"Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let
us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and
encourage the arts and commerce.
"Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah--to 'undo
the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.'"
(President John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961)
"But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life
of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of
discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in
the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is
still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own
land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition."
(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream," 1963)
"It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope
of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely
patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the
odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place
for him, too."
(Barack Obama, "The Audacity of Hope," July 27, 2004)
"In school I am a luckless goosegirl, friendless and forlorn. In P.S. 71 I carry, weighty as a
cloak, the ineradicable knowledge of my scandal--I am cross-eyed, dumb, an imbecile in
arithmetic; in P.S. 71 I am publicly shamed in Assembly because I am caught not singing
Christmas carols; in P.S. 71 I am repeatedly accused of deicide. But in the Park View
Pharmacy, in the winter dusk, branches blackening in the park across the road, I am
driving in rapture through the Violet Fairy Book and the Yellow Fairy Book, insubstantial
chariots snatched from the box in the mud."
(Cynthia Ozick, "A Drugstore in Winter." Art and Ardor, 1983)
"Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I
have witnessed in public and private life, have been the consequences of action without
thought."
(attributed to Bernard Baruch)
"Brylcreem, a little dab'll do ya,
Brylcreem, you'll look so debonair!
Brylcreem, the gals'll all pursue ya!
They'll love to get their fingers in your hair."
(advertising jingle, 1950s)
"I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize."
(Weird Science, 1985)
"I'm not afraid to die. I'm not afraid to live. I'm not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to
succeed. I'm not afraid to fall in love. I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm just afraid I might
have to stop talking about myself for five minutes."
(Kinky Friedman, When the Cat's Away, 1988)
"In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion!
"So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now! Turn them off right now! Turn them
off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I'm speaking to
you now.
"Turn them off!"
(Peter Finch as television anchorman Howard Beale in Network, 1976)
Anaphora in Dr. King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail"
"But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown
your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick,
brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the
vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of
poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted
and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why
she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television,
and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to
colored children, and see the depressing cloud of inferiority begin to form in her little
mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing
a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old
son asking in agonizingpathos: 'Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so
mean?'; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after
night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept
you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' and
'colored'; when your first name becomes 'nigger' and your middle name becomes 'boy'
(however old you are) and your last name becomes 'John,' and when your wife and
mother are never given the respected title 'Mrs.'; when you are harried by day and
haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance never
quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer
resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'; then
you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."
(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963. I Have a
Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World, ed. by James M. Washington.
HarperCollins, 1992)
The Lighter Side of Anaphora
"I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-off
name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like you,
jerk-off."
(Policeman in The Big Lebowski, 1998)

ANATANACLASIS

Definition:
(1) A type of verbal play in which one word is used in two contrasting (and often comic) senses.
(2) A homonymic pun.
Examples and Observations:
"And there's bars on the corners and bars on the heart."
(Tim McGraw, "Where The Green Grass Grows")
"People on the go . . . go for Coke."
(advertisement for Coca Cola)
"If you dont look good, we dont look good."
(Vidal Sassoon advertising slogan)
"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm."
(Vince Lombardi )
"Rarely is it that a single rhetorical form can essentially define the poetics of not just one
MC but of an entire clique. Such is the case with the Diplomats and
the figurative trope ofantanaclasis. Antanaclasis is when a single word is repeated
multiple times, but each time with a different meaning. For the Diplomats, the popularity
of it likely began with Cam'ron, the leading member of Dipset, who started his career
rapping alongside Mase. Consider the following lines off one of his mix-tape releases: 'I
flip China White,/my dishes white china/from China.' Playing with just two words, he
renders them in several distinct permutations. China white is a particular variety of
heroin. White china is a generic term for dishware, and he then goes on to specify that his
dishware actually is from China. What might sound like nonsense or repetition for the
sake of sound alone soon reveals itself as a rhetorical figure in action."
(Adam Bradley, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop. BasicCivitas, 2009)
Viola: Save thee, friend, and thy music! Dost thou live by thy tabour?
Clown: No, sir, I live by the church.
Viola: Art thou a churchman?
Clown: No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live at my house, and my
house doth stand by the church.
(William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 1)
"The modern sensibility prefers the mechanics of a rhetorical effect to be hidden from
view; anything which smacks of contrivance or artifice, any construction which leaves the
scaffolding in place, is regarded with some suspicion. . . . In other words, the more
obvious the pun to the reader (regardless of what feats of ingenuity went into its
fabrication), the less pleasure there is to be derived from it. This is perhaps
why antanaclasis, the figure in which a word occurs and is then repeated in a different
sense, has never been rehabilitated . . .; the repetition flags the effects, and it shades
from being clever into being clever-clever. This hasn't always been the case. In the
Renaissance, obviousness was no impediment to joy: quite the opposite, in fact."
(Sophie Read, "Puns: Serious Wordplay," in Sylvia Adamson et al., Renaissance Figures of
Speech. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008)
"For every woman growing anxious about thinning hair, there are thousands growing it
back."
(advertisement for Rogaine)
"At first glance, Shirley Polykoff's slogan--'If I've only one life, let me live it as a blonde!'--
seems like merely another example of a superficial and irritating rhetorical trope
(antanaclasis) that now happens to be fashionable among advertising copy writers."
(Tom Wolfe, "The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening")
"Death, tho I see him not, is near
And grudges me my eightieth year.
Now I would give him all these last
For one that fifty have run past.
Ah! He strikes all things, all alike,
But bargains: those he will not strike."
(Walter Savage Landor, "Age")
"'Hem!' again said the thrifty Roland, with a slight inflection of the beetle brows. 'It may
be next to nothing, Ma'am--sister--just as a butcher's shop may be next to
Northumberland House, but there is a vast deal between nothing and that next
neighbour you have given it.'

"This speech was so like one of my father's--so naive an imitation of that subtle
reasoner's use of the rhetorical figure called Antanaclasis (or repetition of the same
words in a different sense), that I laughed and my mother smiled. But she smiled
reverently, not thinking of the Antanaclasis, as, laying her hand on Roland's arm, she
replied in the yet more formidable figure of speech called Epiphonema (or exclamation),
'Yet, with all your economy, you would have had us--'

"'Tut!' cried my uncle, parrying the Epiphonema with a masterly Aposiopesis (or breaking
off), 'tut! if you had done what I wished, I should have had more pleasure for my money!'

"My poor mother's rhetorical armoury supplied no weapon to meet that artful
Aposiopesis, so she dropped the rhetoric altogether, and went on with that
'unadorned eloquence' natural to her, as to other great financial reformers."
(Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Caxtons: A Family Picture, 1849)

ANTIMETABOLE

Definition:
In rhetoric, a verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first
but with the words in reverse grammatical order (A-B-C, C-B-A).

Examples and Observations:
"I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can
write better."
(A. J. Liebling)

"Women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything
they don't want to forget."
(Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937)
"Stops static before static stops you."
(Advertising slogan of Bounce fabric softener sheet, 1990s)
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us."
"Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the
beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the
false with the true."
(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
"It is not how old you are, but how you are old."
(Jules Renard)
"If a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who has
been indicted."
(Jeffrey Rosen, The New Yorker)
"A government that seizes control of the economy for the good of the people, ends up
seizing control of the people for the good of the economy."
(Senator Robert Dole in his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination for
president, San Diego, August 1996)
The Difference Between Antimetabole and Chiasmus
"[T]hose of us who have been granted a disproportionate ability to express ourselves may
not always have the best selves to express."
(Clive James, North Face of Soho, 2006)
"The only distinguishing feature of the antimetabole is that at least two terms from the
first colon change their relative places in the second, appearing now in one order, now in
reversed order. In the process of changing their syntactic position in relation to each
other, these terms change their grammatical and conceptual relation as well. Thus in St.
Augustine's declaration of a semiotic principle--'[E]very sign is also a thing . . . but not
every thing is also a sign'--'sign' and 'thing' switch places in propositions claiming, first,
that the set of all signs is a subset of the set of all things, but, second, that the reverse
conceptual relation dictated by the reverse syntax does not hold . . .. Seventeen hundred
years later, a journalist used the same form to complain about the unfortunate
relationship between members of his own profession and the politicians they report: 'Our
cynicism begets their fakery and their fakery begets our cynicism' . . .. In each of these
examples, separated by almost two thousand years, the arguer builds on the conceptual
reversal created by the syntactic and grammatical reversal.

"A variant of the antimetabole, to which the name 'chiasmus' is sometimes applied,
abandons the constraint of repeating the same words in the second colon yet retains a
pattern of inversion . . .. Instead of repetition, this variant uses words related in some
recognizable way--perhaps as synonyms or opposites or members of the same category--
and these related words change positions."
(Jeanne Fahnestock, Rhetorical Figures in Science. Oxford Univ. Press, 1999)
"I, too, was born in the slum. But just because you're born in the slum does not mean the
slum is born in you, and you can rise above it if your mind is made up."
(Jesse Jackson, speech at 1984 Democratic National Convention)
"You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance."
The Lighter Side of Antimetabole
The Sphinx: He who questions training, only trains himself in asking questions. . . . Ah yes,
work well on your new costumes my friends, for when you care for what is outside, what
is inside cares for you. . . . Patience, my son. To summon your power for the conflict to
come, you must first have power over that which conflicts you.
Mr. Furious: Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings just a little bit formulaic? "If
you want to push something down, you have to pull it up. If you want to go left, you have
to go right." It's . . .
The Sphinx: Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage .
. .
Mr. Furious: . . . your rage will become your master? That's what you were going to say.
Right? Right?
The Sphinx: Not necessarily.
(Wes Studi and Ben Stiller in Mystery Men, 1999)
"Starkist doesn't want tuna with good taste, Starkist wants tuna that tastes good!"
(advertising slogan)

ASYNDETON

Definition:
A rhetorical term for a writing style that omits conjunctionsbetween words, phrases, or clauses (the
opposite of polysyndeton). Adjective: asyndetic.
According to Edward Corbett and Robert Connors, "The principal effect of asyndeton is to produce
a hurried rhythm in the sentence" (Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 1999). See Examples
and Observations, below.
In his study of Shakespeare's style, Russ McDonald argues that the figure of asyndeton works "by
means of juxtaposition rather than coupling, thereby depriving the auditor of clear logical
relations" (Shakespeare's Late Style, 2010).

Etymology:
From the Greek, "unconnected"


Examples and Observations:
"He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac."
(Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957)
"Joona walks through the Christmas market in Bollns Square. Fires are burning, horses
are snorting, chestnuts are roasting. Children race through a stone maze, others drink hot
chocolate."
(Lars Kepler, The Hypnotist. Trans. by Ann Long. Picador, 2011)
"Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift,
Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop,
Bing, Bong, Boom!"
(Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1953)
"She was young, she was pure, she was new, she was nice,
She was fair, she was sweet seventeen.
He was old, he was vile, and no stranger to vice,
He was base, he was bad, he was mean.
He had slyly inveigled her up to his flat
To view his collection of stamps."
(Flanders and Swann, "Have Some Madeira, M'Dear")
"Why, they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation,
by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poisons, by
firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by types of poison, such as
corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth. Suicide by
leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels
of trucks, under the feet of horses, from steamboats. But Mr. Norton, of all the cases on
record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train."
(Edward G. Robinson as insurance agent Barton Keyes in Double Indemnity, 1944)
"It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts.

"Cold; tempest; wild beasts in the forest. It is a hard life. Their houses are built of logs,
dark and smoky within. There will be a crude icon of the virgin behind a guttering candle,
the leg of a pig hung up to cure, a string of drying mushrooms. A bed, a stool, a table.
Harsh, brief, poor lives."
(Angela Carter, "The Werewolf." The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, 1979)
"I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods"
(Anne Sexton, "Her Kind")
"In some ways, he was this town at its best--strong, hard-driving, working feverishly,
pushing, building, driven by ambitions so big they seemed Texas-boastful."
(Mike Royko, "A Tribute")
"Anyway, like I was saying, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil
it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried,
deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper
shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger,
shrimp sandwich. That--that's about it."
(Bubba in Forrest Gump, 1994)
"Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog
down the river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside
pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish
heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and
hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small
boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the
firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful
skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering
little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into
a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in
the misty clouds."
(Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1852-1853)
Functions of Asyndeton
"When [asyndeton] is used in a series of words, phrases, or clauses, it suggests the series
is somehow incomplete, that there is more the writer could have included (Rice 217). To
put it somewhat differently: in a conventional series, writers place an 'and' before the
final item. That 'and' signals the end of the series: 'Here it is folks--the last item.' Omit
that conjunction and you create the impression that the series could continue. . . .

"Asyndeton can also create ironic juxtapositions that invite readers into collaborative
relationships with writers: because there are no explicit connections between phrases
and clauses, readers must supply them to reconstruct the writer's intent. . . .

"Asyndeton can also quicken the pace of prose, especially when it is used between
clauses and sentences."
(Chris Holcomb and M. Jimmie Killingsworth, Performing Prose: The Study and Practice of
Style in Composition. SIU Press, 2010)


EPANALEPSIA

Epanalepsis (eh-puh-nuh-LEAP-siss): Figure of emphasis in which the same word or words both
begin(s) and end(s) a phrase, clause, or sentence; beginning and ending a phrase or clause with the
same word or words.

Example: "Nothing is worse than doing nothing."
"But I ain't goin' no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. If I wanna die,
I'll die right here, right now fightin' you -- if I wanna die."
delivered by Will Smith (from the movie Ali)
"The time must come. It's enough -- enough to go to cemeteries, enough to weep for
oceans -- it's enough."
Elie Wiesel , Speech at Buchenwald Concentration Camp
"Control, control, you must learn control."
from the movie The Empire Strikes Back
"These things I have spoken unto you that in me you might have peace. In the world, ye
shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer -- I have overcome the world."
John 16:33 (KJV)
"Inflation is down since 1980, but not because of the supply-side miracle promised to us
by the President. Inflation was reduced the old-fashioned way -- with a recession; two
years of massive unemployment; more hungry, in this world of enormous affluence, the
United States of America, more hungry."
Mario Cuomo, 1984 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address
"A minimum wage that is not a livable wage can never be aminimum wage."
Ralph Nader
"My name is Robert Neville. I'm a survivor living in New York City. I am broadcasting on
all AM frequencies. If you are out there, if anyone is out there, I can provide food, I can
provide shelter, I can providesecurity -- if there's anybody out there."
delivered by Will Smith (from the movie, I Am Legend)
"I ask you to consider the evidence. Don't turn away from the truth. Don't turn away from
your conscience. Please, don't ignore the law. No, embrace that higher principle for
which the law was meant to serve:Justice -- that' s all I ask -- justice."
delivered by Denzel Washington (from the movie The Hurricane)

EPISTROPHE

Definition:
A rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses. Also
known as epiphora. Contrast withanaphora (rhetoric).

Etymology:
From the Greek, "turning about"

Examples:
"A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break
all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when
the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight!"
(Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003)
"The big sycamore by the creek was gone. The willow tangle was gone. The little enclave
of untrodden bluegrass was gone. The clump of dogwood on the little rise across the
creek--now that, too, was gone."
(Robert Penn Warren, Flood: A Romance of Our Time. Random House, 1963)
"Don't you ever talk about my friends! You don't know any of my friends. You don't look
at any of my friends. And you certainly wouldn't condescend to speak to any of my
friends."
(Judd Nelson as John Bender in The Breakfast Club, 1985)
"For no government is better than the men who compose it, and I want the best, and we
need the best, and we deserve the best."
(Senator John F. Kennedy, speech at Wittenberg College, Oct. 17, 1960)
"And close your eyes, child, and listen to what I'll tellyou.
Follow in the darkest night the sounds that may impel you.
And the song that I am singing may disturb or serve to quell you."
(Jerry Merrick, "Follow," as sung by Richie Havens on the album Mixed Bag, 1967)
Tom Joad: "I'll Be There"
"Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where--wherever you look. Wherever they's
a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll
be there. . . . . An' when our folk eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build--
why,I'll be there."
(Tom Joad in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, 1939)
Manny Delgado: "Shel Was There"
"Shel Turtlestein was many things, but above all he was my friend. When I didnt get a
date with Fiona Gunderson, Shel was there. When I didnt get to play the part of
Tevye,Shel was there. And when a raccoon broke into my room, unfortunately, Shel was
there."
(Manny's eulogy for his turtle in the episode "Truth Be Told." Modern Family, March
2010)
Abraham Lincoln: "The People"
"It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
(Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19, 1863)
Barack Obama: "Yes, We Can"
"For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready
or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with
a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.

"It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a
nation:Yes, we can.

"It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom
through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.

"It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who
pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.

"It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president
who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and
pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.

"Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can
repair this world. Yes, we can."
(Senator Barack Obama, speech following a primary loss in New Hampshire, Jan. 8, 2008)
Shakespeare: "The Ring"
Bassanio:
Sweet Portia,
If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring
And would conceive for what I gave the ring
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
Portia:
If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
(William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, scene 1)

ISOCOLON

Definition:
A rhetorical term for a succession of clauses or sentences of approximately equal length and
corresponding structure.
An isocolon with three parallel members is known as a tricolon. A four-part isocolon is a tetracolon
climax.
"Isocolon is particularly of interest," notes T.V.F. Brogan, "because Aristotle mentions it in
the Rhetoric as the figure that produces symmetry and balance in speech and, thus,
creates rhythmical prose or even measures in verse" (Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics,
2012). See Examples and Observations, below.

Etymology:
From the Greek, "of equal members or clauses"

Examples and Observations:
"It takes a licking, but it keeps on ticking!"
(advertising slogan of Timex watches)
"I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, she's a Pepper, we're a Pepper--
Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too? Dr. Pepper!"
(advertising jingle for Dr. Pepper soft drink)
"Come then: let us to the task, to the battle, to the toil--each to our part, each to our
station. Fill the armies, rule the air, pour out the munitions, strangle the U-boats, sweep
the mines, plow the land, build the ships, guard the streets, succor the wounded, uplift
the downcast, and honor the brave."
(Winston Churchill , speech given in Manchester, England, on Jan. 29, 1940)
"Nothing that's beautiful hides its face. Nothing that's honest hides its name."
(Orual in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1956)
"Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and
constant in human sufferings and unites it with the sufferer. Terror is the feeling which
arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings
and unites it with the secret cause."
(James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1917)
"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an
inconvenience rightly considered."
(Gilbert Keith Chesterton)
Effects Created by Isocolon
"Isocolon . . ., one of the most common and important rhetorical figures, is the use of
successive sentences, clauses, or phrases similar in length and parallel in structure. . . . In
some cases of isocolon the structural match may be so complete that the number
ofsyllables in each phrase is the same; in the more common case the parallel clauses just
use the same parts of speech in the same order. The device can produce
pleasing rhythyms, and the parallel structures it creates may helpfully reinforce a parallel
substance in the speaker's claims. . . .

"An excessive or clumsy use of the device can create too glaring a finish and too strong a
sense of calculation."
(Ward Farnsworth, Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. David R. Godine, 2011)
The Isocolon Habit
"Historians of rhetoric continually puzzle over why the isocolon habit so thrilled the
Greeks when they first encountered it, why antithesis became, for a while,
an oratorical obsession. Perhaps it allowed them, for the first time, to 'see' their two-
sided arguments."
(Richard A. Lanham, Analyzing Prose, 2nd ed. Continuum, 2003)
The Difference Between Isocolon and Parison
- "Isocolon is a sequence of sentences of equal length, as in Pope's 'Equal your merits!
equal is your din!' (Dunciad II, 244), where each sentence is assigned five syllables,
iconizing the concept of equal distribution. . . .

"Parison, also called membrum, is a sequence of clauses or phrases of equal length."
(Earl R. Anderson, A Grammar of Iconism. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1998)

- The Tudor rhetoricians do not make the distinction between isocolon and parison. . . .
The definitions of parison by Puttenham and Day make it identical with isocolon. The
figure was in great favor among the Elizabethans as is seen from its schematic use not
only inEuphues, but in the work of Lyly's imitators."
(Sister Miriam Joseph, Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language. Columbia Univ. Press,
1947)

PARISON

Definition:
A rhetorical term for corresponding structure in a series of phrasesor clauses--adjective to
adjective, noun to noun, etc. Adjective:parisonic.

Etymology:
From the Greek. "evenly balanced"

Examples and Observations:
"The closer you get, the better you look."
(advertising slogan for Nice 'n' Easy Shampoo)
"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Worship")
"Everything you want, nothing you don't."
(slogan for Nissan automobiles)
"The milk chocolate melts in your mouth--not in your hand."
(advertising slogan for M&Ms candy)
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear
any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the
survival and the success of liberty."
(President John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 1961)
"A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."
(slogan of the Florida Citrus Commission)
"I have lov'd, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery."
(John Donne, "Love's Alchemy")
"He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is predestined to be damned will be
damned."
(James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans)
"Based as it is on identity of sound, parison is usually classified with figures of similitude
and sometimes associated with methods of amplification, techniques for expanding and
comparing. . . . Parison is, of course, an instrument of delight, 'causing,' in [Henry]
Peacham's words, 'delectation by the vertue of proportion and number.' At the same
time, however, it serves a heuristic function, enlarging and dividing a topic for purposes
of analysis, comparison, and discrimination. By arranging ideas into parallel forms,
whether phrases or clauses, the prose writer calls the reader's attention to an especially
significant idea; at the same time, however, such an arrangement focuses the reader's
mind on the semantic similarities, differences, or oppositions exposed in parallel
structures. . . .

"Parison--along with its rhetorical cognates--is one of the cornerstones of early-modern
English writing."
(Russ McDonald, "Compar or Parison: Measure for Measure." Renaissance Figures of
Speech, ed. by Sylvia Adamson, Gavin Alexander, and Katrin Ettenhuber. Cambridge Univ.
Press, 2007)
"Promise her anything, but give her Arpege."
(advertising slogan for Arpege perfume, 1940s)

PARANOMASIA

Definition:
A rhetorical term for punning, playing with words. Adjective:paronomastic.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "word-shunting"

Examples and Observations:
"A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handyman with a sense of humus."
(E.B. White, "The Practical Farmer")
"Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends."
(credited to Tom Waits)
I used to be a tap dancer until I fell in the sink.

PLOCE

Definition:
A rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or name, often with a different sense, after the
intervention of one or more other words.
Ploce may also refer to (1) repetition of the same word under different forms (also known
as polyptoton), (2) repetition of aproper name, or (3) any repetition of a word or phrase broken up
by other words (also known as diacope). See Observations, below.

Etymology:
From the Greek, "weaving, plaiting"

Examples:
"I am stuck on Band-Aid, and Band-Aid's stuck on me."
(advertising slogan)
"I know what's going on. I may be from Ohio, but I'm not from Ohio."
(Heather Graham as Daisy in Bowfinger, 1999)
"The future is no place to place your better days."
(Dave Matthews, "Cry Freedom")
"If it wasn't in Vogue, it wasn't in vogue."
(promotional slogan for Vogue magazine)
"First she ruins my life. And then she ruins my life!"
(Maggie O'Connell, on her mother, in Northern Exposure)
When you look good, we look good."
(Vidal Sassoon advertising slogan)
Ploce in Shakepeare's Twelfth Night
Maria: By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights. Your cousin, my lady,
takes great exceptions to your ill hours.

Sir Toby Belch: Why, let her except, before excepted.

Maria: Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

Sir Toby Belch: Confine? Ill confine myself no finer than I am. These clothes are good
enough to drink in, and so be these boots too. An they be not, let them hang themselves
in their own straps.
(William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act One, scene 3)
"We'll be over, we're coming over,
And we won't come back till it's over
Over there."
(George M. Cohan, "Over There," 1917)
"Give me a break! Give me a break! Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!
(advertising jingle)
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis
of race."
(Chief Justice John Roberts, June 28, 2007)
"The best surprise is no surprise at all."
(advertising slogan of Holiday Inn)
Observations:
Arthur Quinn on Ploce
"A particular species of antanaclasis is the ploce, by which one moves between a more
particular meaning of a word and a more general one, such as when one uses a proper
name to designate both an individual and then the general qualities which that person is
thought to possess. In Romans Paul warns, 'They are not all Israel, which are of Israel.'
James Joyce, in a somewhat different spirit, comments on those who are 'more Irish than
the Irish.' And Timon the misanthrope is asked in Shakespeare's play about him, 'Is man
so hateful to thee / That art thyself a man?' I probably should not have included ploce as
a separate figure, much too specific by half. But I couldn't resist it because of the English
translation one handbook suggested: 'word folding.'"
(Arthur Quinn, Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase. Gibbs Smith, 1982)
Jeanne Fahnestock on Ploce
"[T]he figure ploce epitomizes arguments based on the same form of a word appearing
again and again in an argument. Ploce . . . designates the intermittent or unpatterned
reappearance of a word, within or across several sentences. . . . A straightforward
example can be found in Lyndon Johnson's speech justifying sending troops into the
Dominican Republic in 1965 by claiming the agreement of the Organization of American
States: 'This is and this will be a common action and the common purpose of the
democratic forces of the hemisphere. For the danger is also a common danger and the
principles are common principles" (Windt 1983, 78). In its four appearances, the
adjective common links the countries of the Western Hemisphere in action, purpose,
danger, and principles."
(Jeanne Fahnestock, Rhetorical Style: The Uses of Language in Persuasion. Oxford Univ.
Press, 2011)
Brian Vickers on Ploce in Shakespeare's King Richard the Third
"Ploce is one of the most used figures of stress (especially in [King Richard the Third]),
repeating a word within the same clause or line:
. . . themselves the conquerors,
Make war upon themselves--brother to brother--
Blood to blood, self against self. (II, iv, 61-63)
Epizeuxis is a more acute form of ploce, where the word is repeated without any other
word intervening."
(Brian Vickers, "Shakespeare's Use of Rhetoric." A Reader in the Language of
Shakespearean Drama: Essays, ed. by Vivian Salmon and Edwina Burness. John
Benjamins, 1987)

POLYPTOTON

Definition:
A rhetorical term for repetition of words derived from the same rootbut with different
endings. Adjective: polyptotonic.
Hadumod Bussmann points out that the "double play of varying sound and contrasting
meaning in many aphorisms is achieved through the use of polyptoton" (Routledge Dictionary
of Language and Linguistics, 1996). See Examples and Observations, below.

Etymology:
From the Greek, "use of the same word in different cases"

Examples and Observations:
"I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living."
(Herbert Kretzmer and Claude-Michel Schnberg, "I Dreamed a Dream." Les Miserables,
1985)
"Choosy Mothers Choose Jif"
(commercial slogan for Jif peanut butter)
"I have no sharp taste for acquiring things, but it is not necessary to desire things in order
to acquire them."
(E.B. White, "Goodbye to Forty-Eighth Street." Essays of E.B. White. Harper, 1977)
"[S]he now mourned someone who even before his death had made her a mourner."
(Bernard Malamud, The Natural)
". . . love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove . . ."
(Shakespeare, Sonnet 116)
"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant."
(A. Bronson Alcott, "Conversations." Table-Talk, 1877)
"By dint of railing at idiots, one runs the risk of becoming idiotic oneself."
(Gustave Flaubert)
"The things you own end up owning you."
(Brad Pitt in the movie Fight Club, 1999)
"[T]he signora at every grimace and at every bow smiled a little smile and bowed a
littlebow."
(Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, 1857)
"Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
(Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi )
"Morality is moral only when it is voluntary."
(Lincoln Steffens)
"Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it."
(Joseph Conrad)
"A good ad should be like a good sermon: it must not only comfort the afflicted; it also
mustafflict the comfortable."
(Bernice Fitzgibbon)
"Friendly Americans win American friends."
(slogan of the United States Travel Service in the 1960s)
"Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must
put onincorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put
on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is
swallowed up in victory."
(St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54)
"His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars."
(William Faulkner, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, December 1950)
"Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment."
(Norman Mailer)
Polyptoton as an Argumentative Strategy
"It is sometimes the goal of an argument to take a concept accepted by an audience in
one role or category of a sentence action and transfer it to others, an agent becoming an
action or an action becoming an attribute and so on. This work is epitomized
by polyptoton, the grammatical morphing of the word, as Aristotle explains repeatedly in
the Topics. . . . He points out, for example, how people's judgments follow a term as it
changes from one part of speech to another. So, for example, an audience who believes
that acting justly is better than acting courageously will also believe that justice is better
than courage and vice versa . . .. [T]he Topics is not concerned with immutable rules of
validity but with the patterns of reasoning that most people follow most of the time, and
most people will indeed follow thelogic of polyptotonic morphing as Aristotle describes
it."
(Jeanne Fahnestock, Rhetorical Figures in Science. Oxford Univ. Press, 1999)

SYLLEPSIS

Definition:
A kind of ellipsis in which one word (usually a verb) is understood differently in relation to two or
more other words, which it modifies or governs. Adjective: sylleptic.
As Bernard Dupriez points out in A Dictionary of Literary Devices(1991), "There is little agreement
among rhetoricians on the difference between syllepsis and zeugma," and Brian Vickers notes that
even the Oxford English Dictionary"confuses syllepsis andzeugma" (Classical Rhetoric in English
Poetry, 1989). In contemporary rhetoric, the two terms are commonly used interchangeably to
refer to a figure of speech in which the same word is applied to two others in different senses. See
the observations below and at the end of the entry for zeugma.

Etymology:
From the Greek, "a taking"


Examples:
"When I address Fred I never have to raise either my voice or my hopes."
(E.B. White, "Dog Training")
"We consumers like names that reflect what the economy does. We know, for example,
that International Business Machines makes business machines, and Ford Motors makes
Fords, and Sara Lee makes us fat."
(Dave Barry, "Dave's World," April 8, 2001)
"Miss Bolo rose from the table considerably agitated, and went straight home in a flood
of tears, and a sedan chair."
(Charles Dickens, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, 1837)
"Piano, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing
the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience."
(Ambrose Bierce, A Devil's Dictionary)
"I finally told Ross, late in the summer, that I was losing weight, my grip, and possibly my
mind."
(James Thurber, The Years with Ross, 1959)
"She tracks sand in as well as ideas, and I have to sweep up after her two or three times a
day."
(E.B. White, "On a Florida Key")
"The ice trays show deep claw marks, where people have tried to pry them free, using
can openers and knives and screwdrivers and petulance."
(E.B. White, "On a Florida Key")
"You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality."
(Margaret Atwood, "Ten Rules for Writers." The Guardian, Feb. 19, 2010)
Bryant Gumbel's well-publicized memo ticked off the Today Show's troubles--and other
personalities on the top-rated show.
"You took my hand and breath away."
(Tyler Hilton, "You, My Love")
"PEACE. Live in it or rest in it."
(bumper sticker)
"She blew my nose and then she blew my mind."
(Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "Honky Tonk Woman")
"It's a small apartment. I've barely enough room to lay my hat and a few friends."
(attributed to Dorothy Parker)
The secret to becoming a writer is to persist--to keep on writing regardless if you're paid
any heed or money.
Observations:
"zeugma, syllepsis--even dictionaries and linguists find it difficult to agree on which is
which. They agree only that what is generally involved is a verb (or some other part of
speech) that is doing double duty. In one case there's a syntactical problem; in the other,
a verb has two or more objects yoked together, objects that are not compatible, since for
each the verb is used in a different sense; for example, He took his hat and his
departure."
(Maxwell Nurnberg, I Always Look Up the Word "Egregious." Prentice Hall, 1981)
"Significantly, zeugma or syllepsis is word-yoking often because it is meaning-yoking. In
'opening the door and heart to the homeless boy,' for instance, opening the heart opens
the door, for it is the heart that opens or closes the door; to 'open' yokes the 'heart'
inside with the 'door' outside. To 'open' performs a zeugma-activity. Or is it syllepsis? In
any case,metaphor performs both functions . . .. Metaphor is a zeugma(-syllepsis) yoking
two matters under one word (verb), yoking old and alien, past and future."
(Kuang-ming Wu, On Metaphoring: A Cultural Hermeneutic. Brill, 2001)

ZEUGMA

Definition:
A rhetorical term for the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words although its use
may be grammatically or logically correct with only one. Adjective: zeugmatic.
Rhetorician Edward P.J. Corbett offers this distinction between zeugma and syllepsis: in zeugma,
unlike syllepsis, the single word does not fit grammatically or idiomatically with one member of the
pair. Thus, in Corbett's view, the first example below would be syllepsis, the second zeugma:
"You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit."
(Star Trek: The Next Generation)

"Kill the boys and the luggage!"
(Fluellen in William Shakespeare's Henry V)
As Bernard Dupriez points out in A Dictionary ofLiterary Devices (1991), "There is little agreement
among rhetoricians on the difference between syllepsis and zeugma," and Brian Vickers notes that
even the Oxford English Dictionary "confuses syllepsisand zeugma" (Classical Rhetoric in English
Poetry, 1989). In contemporary rhetoric, the two terms are commonly used interchangeably to
refer to a figure of speech in which the same word is applied to two others in different senses. See
the observations below and at the end of the entry for syllepsis.

Etymology:
From the Greek, "a yoking, a bond"

Examples:
"He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men."
(Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried. McClelland & Stewart, 1990)
"But Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed
outside Than Khe, and he went down under an exceptional burden, more than 20 pounds
of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet
paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus an unweighed fear."
(Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried)
"She arrived in a taxi and a flaming rage."
(John Lyons, Semantics. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977)
"We were partners, not soul mates, two separate people who happened to be sharing a
menu and a life."
(Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses. Ivy Books, 1995)
"[H]e was alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey when, passing the workhouse,
his eyes encountered the bill on the gate."
(Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist)
"Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world."
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man)
"Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,
Or some frail China-jar receive a flaw,
Or stain her honour, or her new brocade."
(Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock)
"She lowered her standards by raising her glass,
Her courage, her eyes and his hopes."
(Flanders and Swann, "Have Some Madeira, M'Dear")
The theme of the Egg Hunt is 'learning is delightful and delicious'--as, by the way, am I."
(Allison Janney as C.J. Cregg in The West Wing)
"You held your breath and the door for me."
(Alanis Morissette, "Head over Feet")
Observations:
"Like syllepsis, the figure known as zeugma uses a single word to link two thoughts, but in
syllepsis the relationship of the linking word to both ideas is correct, whereas in zeugma
the relationship is correct for one idea but not for the other. A fabricated example of
zeugma might be, 'He sat munching his sandwich and his beer.' An actual example from
fiction is, 'Something odd in the behavior of the pair held his attention and his curiosity.'
The term zeugma is often used to refer to syllepsis, but as here distinguished it obviously
is a writing fault, which syllepsis is not."
(Theodore Bernstein, The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage. Simon &
Schuster, 1965)
"Although commentators have historically tried to distinguish between zeugma and
syllepsis, the distinctions have been confusing and contradictory. We're better off
usingzeugma in its broadest sense and not confusing matters by introducing syllepsis, a
little-known term the meaning of which even the experts can't agree on."
(Bryan A. Garner, The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style. Oxford Univ. Press,
2000)