Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speaking or writing. Rhetorical devices are those clever switches of words that grab your attention. Further to expanding the vocabulary I came across a wealth of words I ought to know, labelling rhetorical devices.
This was coupled with the wonderful A Word A Day, AWAD, having one of its irregular competitions. The week’s words were: antimetabole, zeugma, synecdoche, epanalepsis and hendiadys. I knew only synecdoche - and had that misunderstood.
Wikipedia has a substantial glossary of rhetorical terms. A good deal of these refer to larger topics than within a sentence, such as canon [the collection of works in a particular field. Eg the biblical canon, Mozart’s canon1] or bathos2 [switch of style that results in the ludicrous, hence laughter or ridicule].
I’m interested in the words such as AWAD chose and in examples. There is, I find, a lot of confusion, which I assume stems from what might be called poor definition but could equally be multiple overlap of definitions.
You will know alliteration from school; five miles meandering with a mazy motion, Kulba Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge; whisper words of wisdom, Let it Be, the Beatles. A repeated sound, as in tongue-twisters.
Similarly, assonance, a repeated similar vowel sound, and far harder to recognise: It beats as it sweeps as it cleans! - slogan for Hoover vacuum cleaners, using the repeated ee sound. Thin Lizzy, “With Love” with an ‘eh’ sound - I must confess that in my quest I felt depressed and restless. Consonance is similar, repeating the final consonant sound; Mike likes his bike. Dr Seuss uses a lot of assonance, consonance and alliteration, which is why it is fun to read out loud.
You will know onomatopoeia and maybe can even spell it. Buzz, fizz, hiss, bang, click, snip, hum , plop - where the word copies the sound it represents.
Last of these is dissonance, disrupting the pattern. A good one is beans means Heinz, an obvious advert; you might say this is assonance with the pattern disruption only in the spelling. Poetry is full of this, the disruption or clashing of sounds. of course one man’s discord is another’s harmony, so this can be hard to agree upon. Trying to find a better assonance: Right said Fred let’s have a slice of bread; and its related dissonance, Right said Fred let’s have a cup of tea. You might improve this.
You may know syllogism, a conclusion based upon propositions assumed true; agreeing with Wikipedia to use M – Middle, S – subject, P – predicate, then a typical syllogism is to say that All M are P, all S are M, so all S are P. There are many forms of syllogism, caused by replacing ‘all’ with ‘some’ or ‘no’. All squares are rhombuses, all squares are rectangles, some rhombuses are rectangles (and some rectangles are rhombuses). This is outside what I want to discuss here.
You will know allusion, a reference to a famous person or event. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark, Howard Ruff. That lies outside what I want to include here.
You will know oxymoron, a two word paradox such as eloquent silence, ignorantly read, expensive economy, useless plan, living dead, only choice, deafening silence, open secret, liquid food, short wait, big baby, small crowd, common difference, once again....
New words to me: Now there’s a simple test for inclusion.
Anaphora - repetition, often in threes, at the start of a sentence or phrase: very easy, very effective, very readable. Will you remember this? Will you use this? Will you apply this? Also called conduplicatio. I have a dream ..., Martin Luther King, Do not pass Go, do not collect $200... Monopoly
Epistrophe - the same as anaphora but at the end of the phrase. Also called antistrophe. Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
"Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:
That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange?
That Angelo's a murderer; is't not strange?
That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;
Is it not strange and strange?"
(Isabella in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act 5, scene 1)
Symploce
, both anaphora and epistrophe.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail."
(attributed to Benjamin Franklin and others)
Epanalepsis a phrase used at the start and end of the compound sentence. Walmart: Always low prices. Always. Bruce Forsyth: Nice to see you, to see you, nice.
Synecdoche, when a part stands for the whole, or the other way about. My wheels means the car, glasses means spectacles, cash means coins, coppers means coins. Not always true, but used in this way can bring attention to a feature. Send in the troops, where troops are merely part of the armed forces who would be sent, is synecdoche.
Synecdoche is (too) easily confused with metonymy. Metonymy uses symbolism and refers to something closely linked but not a part of the thing. Britain voted no at Brussels refers to the political representatives, not the country. Julius Caesar’s ...countrymen, lend me your ears is metonymy; ears for attention.
Anadipiosis - has much in common with symploce, repeating a phrase at the end of one line near the start of the next. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God John 1:1
Zeugma connects two or more parts of speech by another part of speech;
a subject with multiple verbs (diazeugma), I wrote this and edited it, you read this and understood it;
a verb with multiple objects, He caught a plane and the ‘flu;
a verb with multiple subjects Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.
Zeugma is confusable with syllepsis, which may be the same thing. I suspect zeugma is a less specific term. Syllepsis is where a verb applies only to one of the subjects, They saw lots of thunder and lightning , where you don’t see thunder, and He works his work, I mine Ulysses, Tennyson, where I works mine is wrong.
Hendiadys is where a conjunction is inserted between a word and its modifier, readable and correct rather than readably correct. So which is Here lies a lawyer and a good man, zeugma, hendiadys or both? The test is whether you could lose one noun and change it to a modifier. The good lawyer is not necessarily a good man, hence the joke value.
Exercise: Recognise these, from AWAD’s competition:
Repeated words are not words repeated.
Cashman Kerr Prince, Norwood, Massachusetts Antimetabole
In his youth he had been tall and strong, but by the time I met him he was a pair of aching knees.
Mariejoy San Buenaventura, Salaya, Thailand Synecdoche
He checked out the book and the librarian.
Vanessa Rasmussen, Vineland, New Jersey Zeugma
It's better to lose a moment in life than lose your life in a moment.
Pinny Gold, Brooklyn, New York Antimetabole
The poor man lost face and a job so he cried a tear and for help.
Matthew Van Atta, Wellington, New Zealand Zeugma
In baseball, not one in a thousand bats bats a thousand.
Stanley Mandell, Bellevue, Washington synecdoche & antimetabole
Wall Street lives to work while the absolute and corrupt work to live on Wall Street.3
Joshua Marx, Brooklyn, New York
Possibly Zeugma, Antimetabole, Synecdoche, epanalepsis and hendiadys.
On re-reading this I see that I wouldn’t want to set or sit a test on the use of these words, as so many of the terms overlap; cause for disagreement and in so doing, cause for students to disregard the whole set of words as useless. If we do not have good definitions, then words fall into misuse and disuse.
I’ll extend this page as I discover more words. Suggestions appreciated; email button included nearby.
DJS 20141112
She lowered her standards by raising her glass/ Her courage, her eyes and his hopes
(Have Some Madeira, M'Dear, of course, Flanders and Swann) complete words
Exercise: identify the rhetorical devices used in Madeira M’dear.
Further thoughts:
Antimetabole (which I keep on reading as anti-timetable)
I don't like people who don't think because people who don't think don't like me.
If we puzzle words enough we can make word puzzles.
Does a timetable table time?
Do we use baby powder to powder baby? Gun powder to powder guns? Then what does custard powder do?
An antimetabolite (not antimetabole) acts as a toxin in cancer treatment: "toxins are antimetabolites and antimetabolites are often toxins"
PIc from http://ghcdsapenglish.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/untitled.png
1 an example of double use of canon, since Mozart wrote several canons, not unlike Pachlabel. See here to see a bawdy side of Mozart. http://mentalfloss.com/article/55247/3-dirty-songs-mozart Leck Mich im Arsch, Bona Nox, Difficile Lectu, each with a Köchel number.
2 Bathos: the ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 1978.
3 live to work, work to live is antimetabole; absolute and corrupt, absolutely corrupt, hendiadys -
possibly that gives two subjects for the verb, so zeugma. One might argue that two groups belong on Wall Street, so zeugma. Wall street ..... wall street is epanalepsis: Wall Street refers to the people who work there, synecdoche. Brilliant construction, or recognition, or both - all five of the week’s competition achieved.
