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Antanagoge: placing a good point or benefit next to a fault criticism, or problem in order to reduce the impact or significance of the negative point:
True, he always forgets my birthday, but he buys me presents all year round.
The new anti-pollution equipment will increase the price of the product slightly, I am aware; but the effluent water from the plant will be actually cleaner than the water coming in. |
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Antiphrasis: one word irony, established by context:
"Come here, Tiny," he said to the fat man.
It was a cool 115 degrees in the shade. |
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Aposiopesis: stopping abruptly and leaving a statement unfinished:
If they use that section of the desert for bombing practice, the rock hunters will--.
I've got to make the team or I'll--. |
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Catachresis is an extravagant, implied metaphor using words in an alien or unusual way. While difficult to invent, it can be wonderfully effective:
I will speak daggers to her. --Hamlet [In a more futuristic metaphor, we might say, "I will laser-tongue her." Or as a more romantic student suggested, "I will speak flowers to her."]
One way to write catachresis is to substitute an associated idea for the intended one (as Hamlet did, using "daggers" instead of "angry words"):
"It's a dentured lake," he said, pointing at the dam. "Break a tooth out of that grin and she will spit all the way to Duganville." |
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Epanalepsis repeats the beginning word of a clause or sentence at the end. The beginning and the end are the two positions of strongest emphasis in a sentence, so by having the same word in both places, you call special attention to it:
Water alone dug this giant canyon; yes, just plain water.
To report that your committee is still investigating the matter is to tell me that you have nothing to report.
Many writers use epanalepsis in a kind of "yes, but" construction to cite common ground or admit a truth and then to show how that truth relates to a more important context:
Our eyes saw it, but we could not believe our eyes. |
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Epizeuxis: repetition of one word (for emphasis):
The best way to describe this portion of South America is lush, lush, lush.
What do you see? Wires, wires, everywhere wires.
Polonius: "What are you reading?" Hamlet: "Words, words, words." |
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Exemplum: citing an example; using an illustrative story, either true or fictitious:
Let me give you an example. In the early 1920's in Germany, the government let the printing presses turn out endless quantities of paper money, and soon, instead of 50-pfennige postage stamps, denominations up to 50 billion marks were being issued. |
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using subordination to show the relationship between clauses or phrases (and hence the opposite of parataxis):
They asked the question because they were curious.
If a person observing an unusual or unfamiliar object concludes that it is probably a spaceship from another world, he can readily adduce that the object is reacting to his presence or actions when in reality there is absolutely no cause-effect relationship. --Philip Klass
While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. --John 9:5 |
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writing successive independent clauses, with coordinating conjunctions, or no conjunctions:
We walked to the top of the hill, and we sat down.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. --Genesis 1:1-2 (KJV)
The Starfish went into dry-dock, it got a barnacle treatment, it went back to work. |
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A threat against someone, or something.
Example
You can walk on over here, but you won't be walking back. |
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Pleonasm: using more words than required to express an idea; being redundant. Normally a vice, it is done on purpose on rare occasions for emphasis:
We heard it with our own ears.
And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus Himself alone. --Matthew 17:8 |
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Symploce: combining anaphora and epistrophe, so that one word r phrase is repeated at the beginning and another word or phrase is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences:
To think clearly and rationally should be a major goal for man; but to think clearly and rationally is always the greatest difficulty faced by man. |
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