rhetorical device examples Flashcards
to be or to not be; what can your country do for you but ask what can I do for my country
antithesis
slang-ya’ll, can’t, ain’t, somethin’
Colloquialism
boot, beat, best brag–s, sh ,s ,sh
consonance
the early bird gets the worm
aphorism
calling out to dead, imaginary, or absent person or place
apostrophe
structures of an atom is like a solar system. nucleus is the sun and electrons are the planets revolving around their sun
analogy
like father, like son- easy come, easy go- flying is fast, comfortable and safe
parallelism
I’m mighty glad Georgia waited until after Christmas before it secedes or it would have ruined the Christmas party
metonymy
this blessed pot, this earth, this realm, this England
anaphora
if any speak; for him I have offended. who is here so rude that would not be a Rome. if any speak, for I have offended…
epistrophe
this is the villain among you who deceived you, who cheated you, who meant to betray you completely…
asyndeton
and, or, but, nor…
polysyndeton
“boot” refers to soldier
“gray beard” refers to old man
“coke” refers to all carbonated drinks
synecdoche
first, second, then, finally
process analysis
after winning the lottery and saying “I’m delighted”
understatement
god helps those who help themselves
adage
impossible to read criticism of himself without trying to grab a pen and replying to the effect the accusation is a gross insult to his person
pedantic
lack proper respect or seriousness
flippant
adjective after a noun “the form divine” verb before its subject “came the dawn”
syntactical inversion
“I didn’t have any bus fare, but fortunately some Good Samaritan helped me out!”
“your’e acting like such a Scrooge”
allusion
“whether I should turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else these pages must show”
“it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”
argumentation
Aesop’s Fables
allegory
“give every man thy ear, but few thy voice”
“better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven”
antithesis
“maw maw- grandma”
“bestie- best friend”
“ain’t- am not”
Colloquialism
“stench, smell, aroma, scent, odor”
“frugal, economical, stingy, cheap”
connotation
“sally sold sea shells by the sea shore”
“Peter piper picked a pell of picker peppers”
consonance
“her eyes were lasers, boring a hole through me. her ears were smoking, and her hair was on fire.”
“the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
caricature
“all for one and one for all”
“don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”
aphorism
“twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.”
“Oh! stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as naught; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness”
apostrophe
“he is a rotten, dirty, terrible, trudging, stupid dude!”
“Klarissa Klein drives an old, gumbling Cadillac which has a crumpled bumper and screaming, honking horn.”
cacophony
“Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South.”
“I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought … “
enumeration
“That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet”
“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
analogy
“If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate.”
“To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true.”
parallelism
“Oh, I would never dream of assuming I know all Hogwarts’ secrets, Igor. Only this morning, for instance, I took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I had never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished.”
anecdote
“I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song.”
“As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must be conducted to the Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle, but in his pale, unmoving way, silently acquiesced.”
metonymy
“Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!”
“The apartment was on the top floor—a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath.”
anaphora
“Where now? Who now? When now?”
“The big sycamore by the creek was gone. The willow tangle was gone. The little enclave of untrodden bluegrass was gone. The clump of dogwood on the little rise across the creek — now that, too, was gone …”
epistrophe
“This is the villain among you who deceived you, who cheated you, who meant to betray you completely…”
“Call up her father.
Rouse him. Make after him, Poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets. Incense her kinsmen,
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell…”
asyndeton
