apostrophe pronounce.jpg (615 bytes)
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, or a nonexistent character.
[Gk. "turning away"]
-"Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee . . .."
(William Wordsworth, "London, 1802")
-"Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art" (John Keats)
-"Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy
of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. . . . Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good
stead."
(James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)
antithesis pronounce.jpg (615 bytes)
Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
[Gk. "opposition"]
-"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." (Goethe)
-"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it
was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing
before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."
(Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)
-"Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him."
(E. M. Forster, Howard's End)
-"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
(Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at St. Louis, 1964)
-"We think in generalities, but we live in details." (Alfred North Whitehead)
-"The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression." (Harold Pinter)
anadiplosis
Repetition of the last word of one line or clause to begin the next.
(Pronounced "a na di PLO sis") [Gk. "doubling back"]
-"When I give I give myself."
(Walt Whitman)
-"Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task."
(Henry James)
-"All service ranks the same with God,
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we."
(Robert Browning, Pippa Passes)
-"The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it."
(Dylan Thomas on Wales)
paradox imagesescher (4802 bytes)
A statement that appears to contradict itself.
[Gk. "incredible"; contrary to opinion or expectation]
-"The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)
-"I do not love you except because I love you;
"I go from loving to not loving you,
"From waiting to not waiting for you
"My heart moves from cold to fire."
(Pablo Neruda)
-"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that concern for one's own safety in the face
of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be
grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly
more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly
them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to."
(Joseph Heller, Catch-22)
paralepsis
Emphasizing a point by seeming to pass over it. See apophasis.
[Gk. "disregard"]
-"The music, the service at the feast,
The noble gifts for the great and small,
The rich adornment of Theseus's palace . . .
All these things I do not mention now."
(Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales)
-"Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it.
It is not meet you know how Caesar lov'd you."
(Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III.ii.136-51)
syllepsis (See zeugma.) pronounce.jpg (615 bytes)
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.
-"He lost the bet and his temper."
-"Bryant Gumbel's well-publicized memo ticked off the Today show's troubles-and other personalities on the
top-rated show."
-"You held your breath and the door for me." (Alanis Morrissette, "Head Over Feet")
synecdoche pronounce.jpg (615 bytes)
Substitution of a less inclusive for a more inclusive term to describe something--or the other way around. Most
commonly, synechdoche involves the use of a part to represent the whole. A form of metonymy. (pronounced
"si NEK doh kee")
[Gk. "receiving jointly"]
-"All hands on deck."
-"Take thy face hence." (Shakespeare, Macbeth V.iii)
-"I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."
(T. S. Eliot's "the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")
-"England won the soccer match."
metonymy pronounce.jpg (615 bytes) crown2.jpg (3141 bytes)
Substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is meant ("crown for royalty"). In modern literary
criticism, metonymy is often seen as the controlling trope for the loosely structured, open-ended works
associated with post-modernism. Broadly viewed, metaphor indicates similarity, metonymy contiguity.
Metonymy can also refer to the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things
around it: for instance, describing someone's clothing or belongings in order to characterize the individual.
Advertising frequently uses this kind of metonymy, simply putting a product in close proximity to something we
want (companionship, beauty, happiness). (See Michael Quinion's distinction between synechdoche and
metonymy at http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-syn1.htm .)
[Gk. "substitute meaning" or "beyond name"]
-"The pen is mightier than the sword."
-"Have you read Faulkner?"
-"Her voice is full of money." (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
-"Bush has bombed Afghanistan and Iraq."
-"The suits on Wall Street walked off with most of our savings."
-"The B.L.T. left without paying." (Waitress referring to a customer.)
-"Reverend Beadle has not always been a man of the cloth."
-"You're not in the ball park yet, but you have pulled into the parking lot." (combination of metaphor and
metonyny)
chiasmus pronounce.jpg (615 bytes)
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts
reversed. (Similar to antimetabole, chiasmus also involves a reversal of structures in successive phrases or
clauses.) The adjectival form is chiastic.
(Pronunciation: "ky-AZ-mus") [derived from Greek letter"X"]
--"I flee who chases me, and chases who flees me." (Ovid)
--"Fair is foul, and foul is fair." (Shakespeare, Macbeth I.i)
--"Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original
is not good."(Samuel Johnson)
--"If black men have no rights in the eyes of the white men, of course the whites can have none in the eyes of the
blacks." (Frederick Douglass, "An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage")
--"The question isn't whether Grape Nuts are good enough for you; it's whether you are good enough for Grape
Nuts." (advertisement)
--"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order."
(Alfred North Whitehead)
--"I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me." (Winston Churchill)
--"The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults."
(Peter De Vries)
--"Don't sweat the petty things--and don't pet the sweaty things." (anonymous)
--"Never let a fool kiss you--or a kiss fool you." (anonymous)
--"Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."
(George W. Bush)
zeugma pronounce.jpg (615 bytes)
Use of a word to modify or govern two or more words although its use is grammatically or logically correct with
only one. (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.)
[Gk. "a yoking"]
-"Here thou, great ANNA! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes tea."
(Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock)
-"He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men."
(Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried)
Mr. Finnegan
Speech
NAME_______________________________________
Rhetorical Device Test (36 Points)
For each of the following examples, example each of the following by providing the appropriate rhetorical
device.
Word Bank
Antithesis
Apostrophe
Anaphora
Anadiplosis
Antistrophe
Alliteration
Cacophony
Chiasmus
Irony
Metaphor
Synecdoche
Praeteritio
Polysyndeton
Zeugma
Pathos
Ethos
Logos
1. A sudden blow! The great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs; her nape caught in his bill. – William Butler Yeats: “Leda and the Swan”
Device = _________________________________________
2. “He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men.” – Tim O’Brien: The
Things They Carried
Device = _________________________________________
3. If the current tax bill goes forward, millions of Americans will not be able to pay for their homes. If
Americans cannot pay for their homes, they will lose them. We are not a government that seeks to tax
people out of their homes. Therefore, the current tax bill must be rejected.
Device = _________________________________________
4. Bright star, would I were as steadfast as thou art! – John Keats: “Ode to the Nightingale”
Device = _________________________________________
5. Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to
battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle—a struggle
against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself. – JFK Inauguration
Device = _________________________________________
6. There, in the cataclysmic chasm of communism, resides all fear of future woes. – Tom Bennington
(New Broadcast)
Device = _________________________________________
7. The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough. – Ezra Pound: “In the Station of the Metro”
Device = _________________________________________
8. I grant you to be men of God, and as men of God, if you will not let my pleas satisfy, listen to the duty
of the first and great command of Nature, and of Nature’s God: Increase and multiply. – Benjamin
Franklin: “Miss Polly Baker Speech”
Device = _________________________________________
9. The music, the service at the feast,
The noble gifts for the great and small,
The rich adornment of Theseus’s palace…
All these things I do not mention now. – Chaucer: from The Canterbury Tales
Device = _________________________________________
10. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is
original is not good. – Samuel Johnson: from The Criticisms
Device = _________________________________________
11. I know no other way but this –
From my heart into your head;
No sweeter entry point to bliss –
From my heart into your head.
And when I put those words to thee –
From my heart into your head,
A boundless bliss runs over me –
From my heart into your head. – Delbert Grady: “From My Heart into Your Head”
Device = _________________________________________
12. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the
season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we
had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way. –
Dickens
Device = _________________________________________
A
“Practicing for Rhetorical Devices Test” Test
Provide the appropriate rhetorical device to each of the examples below.
Word Bank
Alliteration
Anadiplosis
Anaphora
Antistrophe
Antithesis
Apostrophe
Cacophany
Chiasmus
Hyperbole
Irony
Metaphor
Synecdoche
Polysyndeton
Praeteritio
Zeugma
Pathos
Logos
Ethos
1. And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets
And the novels and the teacups and the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more? – T.S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
RHETORICAL DEVICE _________________________________________
2. Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme… - John Keats: “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
RHETORICAL DEVICE _________________________________________
3. Let us hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. – MLK: “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
RHETORICAL DEVICE _________________________________________
4. The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression. – Harold Pinter
RHETORICAL DEVICE _________________________________________
5. Don’t sweat the petty things – and don’t pet the sweaty things. - Anonymous
RHETORICAL DEVICE _________________________________________
6. How should one condemn the prostitute known as Mary Magdalene? After all, I dare say we shall
never find a woman more helpful to so many, someone so giving of her time and energy to the general
well-being of Nazarene men.
RHETORICAL DEVICE ___________________________________________
7. Bye, baby bunting,
Daddy's gone a-hunting,
Gone to get a rabbit skin
To wrap baby bunting in. – Mother Goose
RHETORICAL DEVICE ___________________________________________
8. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in
the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race…. Old father, old artificer, stand me now
and ever in good stead. – James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
RHETORICAL DEVICE ___________________________________________
9. Oh, please, I wouldn’t dream of talking about your ridiculous culture and its disgusting rituals like
bride burning and genital mutilation!
RHETORICAL DEVICE ___________________________________________
10. We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance
produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love
has been poured into our hearts through the Holy spirit that has been given to us. – Romans 5:1-5
RHETORICAL DEVICE ___________________________________________
11. I dare say if you love those close to you – if you care about their wellbeing whatsoever – you will
put that bottle down and check yourself into rehab!
RHETORICAL DEVICE ___________________________________________
12. How many nukes would it take to destroy the Earth as we know it? One. Once detonated, will
there be time to ask ourselves if we could have prevented such a disaster? No. Nuclear weapons exist
in massive quantities, and the only safe measure we can take to preserving this planet and the life on it
is to disarm every nuclear device world-wide. We value this planet and human life. We must disarm
nuclear devices now!
RHETORICAL DEVICE ___________________________________________
Mr. Finnegan
Speech
NAME______________________________________________
Rhetorical Device Retake (30 Points)
After reading the examples for each question, provide the most appropriate Rhetorical Device for each
pair. There should be only one device that clearly applies to both examples.
Alliteration
Synecdoche
Apostrophe
Praeteritio
Cacophany
Zeugma
Chiasmus
Anadiplosis
Metaphor
Antistrophe
Irony
Anaphora
Antithesis
Polysyndeton
1.
For when the sun shines its brightest on a cloudless afternoon, then do I feel the darkness of
this world most palpably.
“The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot.” – Henry David Thoreau: Walden
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED _________________________________________
2.
“Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.” – Emerson: “A Concord Hymn”
A thousand-thousand rhyming men
Do no justice to thee now, or then!
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED__________________________________________
3.
Gentlemen, please! If you knew how little my wife loved me when she – I dare not say it –
when she went to those other men and…forget it. It’s confidential.
I’m not in any position to tell you why you shouldn’t vote for my candidate. It isn’t my place
to say what kinds of seedy behaviors of which he is a part….
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED___________________________________________
4.
There is such a grating grotesqueness in the subjection of servants.
To craft his catharsis, Creon must commit an egregious error in reason.
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED___________________________________________
5.
EDGAR: [I] led [my father], begged for him, saved him from despair;
Never, O fault!, revealed myself unto him
Until some half hour past…. – Shakespeare: King Lear
*
*
*
[Cornwall gets on chair to rip out old Gloucester’s eyes]
GLOUCESTER: He that will think to live till he be old,
Give me some help! –O Cruel! O you gods!
[Cornwall rips out Gloucester’s other eye] – Shakespeare: King Lear
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED____________________________________________
6.
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." - MLK
"We think in generalities, but we live in details." – Alfred North Whitehead
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED ____________________________________________
7.
“Let both sides explore what problem 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 starts, 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 let the oppressed go free.” - JFK
“Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night,
Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night,
Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And
this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED_____________________________________________
8.
“You may ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory: victory at all costs –
victory in spite of all terrors – victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory,
there is no survival. – Winston Churchill
Without peace there can be no survival, for no survival works without understanding; without
understanding, we are doomed to war. And war is the inevitable end of all things.
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED_____________________________________________
9.
Bryant Gumbel ticked off the show’s troubles – and other personalities on the top-rated news
show. (News Broadcast)
"Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea." – Alexander Pope
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED_____________________________________________
10.
"I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me." – Ovid
"Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."
– George W. Bush
RHETORICAL DEVICE USED______________________________________________