Hey kids! Loopy about linguistics? Ready for some rhetoric?
Here goes a page with many fun greek terms for oblique ways to tweak what you speak...and make knees weak with wonder.
Here is a sample of what you will learn:
adnoun
the use of an adjective as a noun. Blessed are the merciful. See also: adnominal.
anadiplosis
rhetorical repetition of one or more words, particularly a word at the end of a clause. "Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business." -- Francis Bacon. See also: anaphora, epistrophe, symploce.
anastrophe
transposition or inversion of normal word order; a type of hyperbaton. "Once upon a midnight dreary..." -- Edgar Allan Poe. "The helmsman steered; the ship moved on; yet never a breeze up blew." -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge. See also: hyperbaton, synchysis.
antanaclasis
repetition of a word whose meaning changes in the second instance. "Your argument is sound...all sound." -- Benjamin Franklin.
apophasis
mentioning something by declaring that it shall not be mentioned. Same as "paralepsis" and "preterition." "I need not remind you to get your Christmas shopping done early." See also: autoclesis, parasiopesis.
aposiopesis
a halting or trailing off of speech caused by the speaker seemingly overcome by an emotion such as excitement, fear, or modesty; a form of brachylogy. "When your father finds out...." See also: brachylogy.
asyndeton
lack of conjuctions between coordinate words, phrases, or clauses; a form of brachylogy. "But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground." -- Abraham Lincoln. See also: brachylogy, polysyndeton.
...and those are just some of the A-list.
Here are some I put to use. Can you guess which rhetorical device was used?
- ...like mind from a thought did spring.
- ...til night doth shut our eye.
- Immortal lips from words did spring.
- Let me die, and pierce the blade across my chin.
- Let me live, and ward off sad silence once more.
- I will say nothing of his virtue, though I find him to be courageous of spirit, untiring of conscience and a friend and brother eternal.
- When the victory? When the Peace?
- Thought makes the man; thought is the quintessence of what motivates man.
- Still he chased ambition -- ambition, that trickledown juicecarrot (Judas Carrot) which dangles in perpetuity, yet jangles in but the pocks of few.
- Arrogance took no swipe at Belvedere; and he fed no coin into arrogance.
- Happy is he who calls God love and Love God.
- Raising Hell and my children.
- She charged my senses and my dinner.
- His wisdom will the nation's food.
All entries will be accepted until the ughten on the fortnight of yesternoon.
