Copyright ©2005 by Paul Niquette. All rights reserved. |
-- 101 Words I Don't Use or those who care to know how this puzzle came about: a certain puzzler was merely trying to figure out what figure of speech might apply to an extraordinary passage that arose spontaneously in a dream. The label that works as well as any is antimetabole -- Figure of emphasis in which the words in one phrase or clause are replicated, exactly or closely, in reverse grammatical order in the next phrase or clause; an inverted order of repeated words in adjacent phrases or clauses (A-B, B-A). Certainly better than antithesis in the list below, don't you think? Amazing that people have put so much effort into naming Figures of Speech. To my astonishment, the puzzle version of Figures of Speech gets hundreds of visitors year after year, possibly high-schoolers with nightmare assignments. |
accumulatio
|
Repetition
in other words: Come
here, draw near, get close,
sit in back and you will flunk.
|
anadiplosis
|
Repetition
of an end at the next beginning: "When you lie,
lie from the heart." (Rally Round the Flag,
Boys by Max Schulman)
|
anaphora
|
Repetition
of beginnings: Big
deal! Big deal! Big frigging
deal!
|
anapodoton
|
Omission
of a clause: That
just goes to show you.
|
anastrophe
|
Arrangement
by reversal of order:
Fly the flight fantastic.
|
antanclasis
|
Repetition
in different senses:
He had come and gone, for
he was far gone.
|
anthimeria
|
Substitution
of one part of speech for another: Her husband's
drink was drunk and so was her husband.
|
antiptosis
|
Substitution
of a prepositional phrase for an adjective: pillar
of salt; place of hope; blue of the sky
|
antisthecon
|
Substitution
of letter(s):
jist a dang minit; glimorous blond beauty; thar
she blows.
|
antithesis
|
Repetition
by negation: You are
a real man when you raise
a child not when you make a baby.
|
aphaersis
|
Omission
of letter(s) at the beginning: 'nough said, "My
country 'tis of thee."
|
apocope
|
Omission
of letter(s) from the end: D'ja eat? No,
d'jew? "Wha's up?"
|
aporia
|
Talking
about not being able to talk about: "I don't want
to criticise, but..."
|
aposiopesis
|
Breaking
off as if unable or unwilling to continue: "Oh,
the humanity...!"
|
asyndeton
|
Omission
of a conjunction: "I
am firm, thou art obstinate,
he is a pig-headed fool."
|
asterismos
|
Addition
of a word to emphasize what follows: "Eureka,
I've found it!" Nota bene, the Law
of Unintended Consequences
has prevailed.
|
auxesis
|
Arrangement
in ascending importance: There may be dozens,
no hundreds, probably thousands of fair
damsels in distress!" (Alligator
in Pogo by Walt Kelly)
|
brachylogia
|
Omission
of a conjunction between words or phrases: The
battlefield was strewn with death, destruction,
unexploded ordnance.
|
catachresis
|
Apparent
inappropriate substitution of one word for
another:
frowning posture; giggling eyebrows; laughing
shoes. "This is not rocket
surgery, here."
|
diacope
|
Repetition
with only a word or two between: Explosions, gut-wrenching
explosions began at dawn.
|
ellipsis
|
Omission of a
phrase: When
anything is considered art, nothing is.
|
enallage
|
Substitution
of one grammatical form for another, an
effective grammatical mistake:
Who done it? "I can't get no
satisfaction." Technology: If
you don't got it, you gotta get it or you get got
by it.
|
enthymene
|
Omission
of a logically implied clause: Rich is sagacious
because Rich is rich.
|
epanados
|
Repetition
in the opposite order:
In economics, causes precede
effects and effects precede causes.
|
epanalepsis
|
Repetition
of the beginning at the end: The obvious is not
always obvious.
|
epanorthosis
|
Addition
by correction: I am
losing, indeed I have lost.
|
epenthesis
|
Addition of
letter(s) to the middle:
fandamntastic; absobloominlutely;
enterboringtainment.
|
epistrophe
|
Repetition
of ends: The hemlines
go higher, the heels go
higher, the prices go higher.
|
epizeuxis
|
Immediate
repetition: Get out,
get out at once.
|
gradatio
|
Repeated
anadiplosis: Demand
accelerates, products become
scarce, currencies dwindle in value, wages
stagnate, quality of life worsens,
people despair.
|
hendiadys
|
Substitution
of a conjunction as a modifier: "bright colors"
becomes "bright and colorful"
|
hypallage
|
Reversal
which seems to change the sense: "flowers of the
valley" becomes "the valley of flowers."
|
hyperbaton
|
Misplacement
of a single element:
She slapped his face twice
across. The pilot rocked his wings,
grinning.
|
hysteron-proteron
|
Reversal
of temporal order:
Take a bow and give your best
performance.
|
isocolon
|
Repetition
of grammatical forms:
The bigger they are, the
slower they pay.
|
metaplasmus
|
Effective
misspelling: dog nab
it; sects in churches (groan)
|
metanymy
|
Substitution
of a word for a related word such as cause for
effect:
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
|
paradiastole
|
Addition
of a disjunctive conjunction: No data, no experimental
protocols nor hypothesis for testing, nor logic
will assure the proper
disposition of fallacies.
|
periphrasis
|
Substitution
of more words for less:
I gave you a gift free
and clear to keep for your very own.
|
pleonasm
|
Addition
of superfluous words:
"Do not fold, spindle, or
mutilate." "I was not involved in any way, shape,
or form." "Tampering
with, disabling, or destroying a smoke detector in
the lavatory is prohibited
by law."
|
ploce
|
Repetition
of a word in a general
and restricted sense: bigger than big;
darker than dark; more savvy
than smart.
|
polyptoton
|
Repetition
of the same word or root in different
grammatical function:
She does not know what there is to be known.
|
polysyndeton
|
Addition
of conjunctions: The
mainsail jibed and whipped
and tore loose from the mast.
|
praeteritio
|
Inclusion
of something by pretending to omit it: The president
does not impugne the political trickery of those
who support his opponent.
|
proparalepsis
|
Addition
of letter(s) to the end: elegancelessness; goblinesque;
obviosity; smithereendom, disdainish.
|
prosthesis
|
Addition of
letter(s) to the beginning:
enfilth, kersplashed, gazillion, propushed
|
repetitio
|
Irregular
repetition of a word or phrase: Streak upon streak,
the effluvia streaked and got streaked.
|
scesis
onamaton
|
Omission
of the only verb of a sentence: Best not in this
setting. Later, alligator. "A crown to
drink!" (A Tale of Two
Cities by Charles Dickens)
|
syllepsis
|
Omission
entailing a pun:
Marriage brought out the best
in that woman, chastity.
|
synaloepha
|
Omission
of a vowel and arrangement of two words into one:
That'll sure dampen your drawstrings. "Lower'n a
snake's belly in a wagon-wheel
rut."
|
synecdoche
|
Substitution
of the part for a whole: Lust in the eye trumps
righteousness in the soul.
|
tmesis
|
Arrangement
of one word into two:
dis courage; em phasis; anti body; poly math
|
zeugma
|
Ellipsis
of a verb from one of two parallel clauses: "The
business man left in high spirits and a Cadillac";
"To err is human; to
forgive, divine."
|
The illustrative examples above that
are of low literary
merit can be blamed on their originator, me. The
rest are remembered
snippets from forgotten sources.
compendium of venerable quotations from Shakespeare,
The Bible and
others can be found in Figures of Speech: 60
ways to turn a phrase
(Gibbs M. Smith Inc. Salt Lake City 1982, long out
of print) in the preface
of which the late Arthur Quinn described them as
follows: "They are there
-- must I confess? -- for imitation."
|
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