Figures of Speech
Excerpts taken from:
Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student by Edward J. Corbett (3rd ed.)
“Make people your slave with language”
“Artful deviation from the ordinary mode of speaking or writing”
Schemes: deviation from regular pattern or arrangement of words (change in order)
Tropes: deviation from regular and principal signification of a word (change in meaning)
Schemes
• Schemes of construction
o Schemes of balance
Parallelism: similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words,
phrases, or clauses.
• “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”
• “blood, toil, tears, and sweat”
Isocolon: similar in structure and length (parallelism with similarity in
length, as well).
Antithesis: juxtaposition of contrasting ideas.
• “small step for man, giant leap for mankind”
• “best of times, worst of times”
o Schemes of word order
Anastrophe: inversion of word order (Yoda-speak).
• “A uniform does not a soldier make”
• “Of health food and sprouts, she knew little”
Parenthesis: insertion of a verbal unit that interrupts the normal flow.
• “She said -- though I heartily disagree -- that chocolate cannot be
good for you.”
Apposition: side by side two coordinate elements, the second of which
explains or modifies the first (to explain or expand).
• “The Chelsea Garden Show, a Mecca to all serious gardeners,
opens in May.”
o Schemes of omission
Ellipsis: deliberate omission of a word or word implied by the context (to
gain economy smoothly)
• “There wasn’t a figure on earth, nor fish, nor fowl.”
• “Every little pebble was distinct, every speckled trout, every
hand’s-breadth of sand.” Mark Twain
• “Rape is the sexual sinof the mob, adultery of the bourgeoisie,
and incest of the aristocracy.” John Updike
Asyndeton: omission of conjunctions
• “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Polysyndeton: use of many conjunctions (hurried prose)
• “and…and…and…” Sandra Cisneros, “Barbie-Q”
o Schemes of repetition
Alliteration: repetition of initial consonants in two or more adjacent words
• “She sells seashells on the seashore.”
Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds
• “how now brown cow”
• “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain”
Anaphora: repetition of the same words or group of words at the
beginnings of clauses.
• “I have a dream” MLK
• “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields…” Winston Churchill
Epistrophe: repetition of the same words or clauses at the end of
successive clauses.
• “…and yet I heard it.” Tell-Tale Heart
• “Yes, we can.” Barack Obama
Epanalepsis: repetition at the end of a clause with the word that began
the clause.
• “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”
• “He was the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood…”
• “Love begets love, and hate begets hate.”
Anadiplosis: repetition of the last word to the beginning of the next
clause (shows process)
• “leg bone connected to the knee bone”
• “Having power makes it…isolated; isolation breeds insecurity;
insecurity breeds suspicion and fear; suspicion and fear breed
violence.” Zbigniew Brzezinski
Climax: arrangement of incremental importance (when it includes
repetition, it can be anadiplosis)
Antimetabole: repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse
grammatical order.
• “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the
country out of the boy.”
• “One should eat to live, not live to eat.” Moliere
• “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do
for your country.” JFK
Chiasmus: reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases.
• “Now a Mayor, in time a President”
• “By day, a mild-mannered accountant, but by night, he’s Super
Tax Guy!”
• “Exalts his enemies, his friends destroys.” John Dryden
Polyptoton: repetition of words derived from the same root word.
• “To dream the undreamable dream, to right the unrightable
wrong…”
• “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR
Tropes
• Metaphor and Simile
o Metaphor: implied comparison between two things of unlike nature with a
commonality.
“On the final exam, several students went down in flames.”
“She is the wind beneath my wings.”
o Simile: direct comparison with “like” or “as.”
“hungry like the wolf”
“sweet as a rose”
“She likes you like a fat boy likes cake”
o Allegory: metaphorical device that tells a story to show implicit comparison
Plato’s The Cave
o Parable: anecdotal narrative designed to teach a moral lesson
An Appointment in Samara
o Synecdoche: figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole
Genus for species: vessel for ship
Species for genus: bread for food
Part for whole: roots for flowers
Matter for what its made of: silver for money
o Metonymy: substitution of attributive or suggestive word for what is meant
“crown” for royalty
• Puns
o Antanaclasis: repetition of a word in different senses.
“If we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately.” Benjamin Franklin
o Paronomasia: use of words alike in sound but different in meaning.
Casting asparaguses on someone (casting aspersions on someone)
o Syllepsis: use of a word understood differently in relation to two or more words,
which it modifies
“Take my wife – please!” or any Henny Youngman
o Anthimeria: substitution of one part of speech for another.
Faxing, FedExing, disrespecting, texting
o Periphrasis: subsititution of a descriptive word or phrase or a proper name for a
quality associated with the name.
“She’s pretty, but she’s no Scarlett Johannsen.”
o Personification: investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities.
“The wind cried Mary”
“The lighting stretched its fingers across the stormy sky.”
o Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration
“My new SUV has a trunk the size of Montana!”
o Litotes: deliberate understatement for effect
“This mere man, this humble man…” when talking about someone
heroic.
• Erotema: asking a question to assert or deny something
o “Shall we wait another day, let our sons and daughters die in a foreign war, and
yet do nothing? No! We shall fight!”
• Irony: use of a word in a way which conveys the opposite meaning or incongruouity or
discordance between what is expected and what occurs (verbal, dramatic, and situational
irony)
o “What a fabulous day!” when it’s pouring buckets.
o Oedipus marrying his mother
o Romeo and Juliet (the end)
o O.Henry’s “Gift of the Magi”
• Onomatopoeia: word whose sound echoes the sense of the word.
o “Splash”
o “Squish”
o “Clatter”
o “Boom”
• Oxymoron: yoking together of two contradictory terms.
o “jumbo shrimp”
o “government intelligence”
o “controlled chaos”
• Paradox: opposites which speak truth
o “I am only guilty of being innocent.”
o “…ugliness is the thing that will always make it beautiful.” Gertrude Stein
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