The elements of eloquence Flashcards

Question

Whats an example of polysyndeton?

Answer 1

And Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples saying ‘Take, eat, this is my body’

Answer 2

Using no conjunctions

Answer 3

Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, gave it to his disciples

Answer 4

She is the fairy responsible for dreaming, assuming a shape

Answer 5

is a verbal sandwich: a word or phrase is repeated after a brief interruption.

Answer 6

"Bond. James Bond.’ ‘ O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!’ – Shakespeare, Hamlet "

Answer 7

This is the purest form of the rhetorical question, where a couple of words have been switched around and a question mark slapped on the end.

Answer 8

"How bright is the sun?’, Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? "

Answer 9

The principle of hendiadys is easy. You take an adjective and a noun, and then you change the adjective into another noun.

Answer 10

instead of saying ‘I’m going to the noisy city’ you say ‘I’m going to the noise and the city’.

Answer 11

When you end each sentence with the same word, that’s epistrophe. When each clause has the same words at the end, that’s epistrophe. When you finish each paragraph with the same word, that’s epistrophe. Even when it’s a whole phrase or a whole sentence that you repeat, it’s still, providing the repetition comes at the end, epistrophe.

Answer 12

Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad and – I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready. And when our folk eat the stuff they raise and live in the houses they build – why, I’ll be there.

Answer 13

With a tricolon you can set up a pattern and then break it. ‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics’ is a simple example. The first two words establish the direction we’re going. The third twists things for humorous purposes.

Answer 14

Eat, drink and be merry. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Truth, justice and the American way.

Answer 15

"repeating a word immediately in exactly the same sense.It’s like a nuclear bomb: immensely effective, but a bit weird if you use it every five minutes. "

Answer 16

Never Never never. No No no

Answer 17

Syllepsis is when one word is used in two incongruous ways. In fact, it can be more than two.

Answer 18

"You may seek it with thimbles – and seek it with care; You may hunt it with forks and hope; You may threaten its life with a railway share; You may charm it with smiles and soap. A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage. "

Answer 19

Two clauses that are grammatically parallel, two sentences that are structurally the same.

Answer 20

"Roses are red. Violets are blue. | ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’,"

Answer 21

Enallage (e-NALL-aj-ee) is a deliberate grammatical mistake.

Answer 22

"… the manager’s boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt—‘Mistah Kurtz – he dead.’ Let us go then, you and I, "

Answer 23

five in a row

Answer 24

four in a row

Answer 25

three in a row

Answer 26

Sometimes you have a series of clauses that all have the same verb. Tom likes whisky, Dick likes vodka, Harry likes crack cocaine. That’s three likes, but you only need one. Tom likes whisky, Dick vodka, Harry crack cocaine. The sentence still makes sense, because we understand that that first likes is still kind of hanging around in the next few clauses.

Answer 27

For contemplation he and valour formed, For softness she and sweet attractive grace; He for God only, she for God in him.

Answer 28

Sets the sentence up as though it’s going to mention two separate things, and then doubles back on himself. The content is not paradoxical. The phrasing is.

Answer 29

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. – Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892

Answer 30

sentence which uses the multiple meaning of a words to express a contradiction

Answer 31

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. – Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892

Answer 32

combining opposites, impossibility

Answer 33

"The Sound of Silence’, | "

Answer 34

the words of the first half are mirrored in the second.

Answer 35

"Tea for two and two for tea Me for you and you for me. | They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,In a Sieve they went to sea:"

Answer 36

Assonance is repeating a vowel sound: deep heat or blue moon.

Answer 37

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield | I met a traveller from an antique land"

Answer 38

Numbers feel mysterious and significant. So all you need to do to sound mysterious and significant is to pick a number, any number.

Answer 39

"It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die. Like one that hath been seven days drowned My body lay afloat;"

Answer 40

it’s essentially when a sentence is so startlingly wrong that it’s right.

Answer 41

"Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade. "

Answer 42

Litotes is affirming something by denying its opposite.

Answer 43

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corpse to the rampart we hurried.

Answer 44

metonymy is when two things are connected because they are really physically connected.

Answer 45

Downing Street was left red-faced last night at news that the White House was planning to attack the British Crown with the support of Wall Street. Number 10 said it was ‘unacceptable’ though the Vatican refused to get involved. Meanwhile, the army’s top brass have been ordered to send in the Green Jackets, which will confuse the Americans as they were expecting the Redcoats.

Answer 46

The extreme form of metonymy is synecdoche, where you become one of your body parts. You are your feet, your lips or your liver.

Answer 47

"All eyes were on the government as they tried to alleviate the famine with a charity theatre matinée. A spokesman said if they got enough bums on seats they could feed all the hungry mouths, but it would have to be all hands on deck as this was about getting feet on the ground. The government said they had their top brains working on it and that the gate from a full house could buy a hundred head of cattle. What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

Answer 48

A transferred epithet is when an adjective is applied to the wrong noun.

Answer 49

"The man smoked a nervous cigarette’. Mr Jaggers never laughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots; and, in poising himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer he sometimes caused the boots to creak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way."

Answer 50

Pleonasm is the use of unneeded words that are superfluous and unnecessary in a sentence that doesn’t require them. It’s repeating the same thing again twice, and it annoys and irritates people.

Answer 51

"tiny: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. It’s the lazy adjective noun. This is a world of personal friends, added bonuses and free gifts. ‘free, gratis and for nothing’,‘I saw it with my own two eyes’, Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat."

Answer 52

beginning and ending with the same word.

Answer 53

"The king is dead; long live the king’ ‘A lie begets a lie’ ‘Nothing will come of nothing’. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!"

Answer 54

similar to allegory giving human qualities to inanimate objects.

Answer 55

similar to allegory giving human qualities to inanimate objects.

Answer 56

"the technical term for exaggeration. we do not use hyperbole enough. "

Answer 57

Marry her! Impossible! You mean a part of her; he could not marry her all himself. It would be a case not of bigamy, but trigamy; the neighbourhood or the magistrates should interfere. There is enough of her to furnish wives for a whole parish. One man marry her! – it is monstrous. You might people a colony with her; or give an assembly with her; or perhaps take your morning walk round her, always provided there were frequent resting places, and you were in rude health. I once was rash enough to try walking round her before breakfast, but only got half-way, and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the Riot Act and disperse her; in short, you might do anything with her but marry her.

Answer 58

An adynaton (pronounced ad-in-ART-on) is impossible.Before an adynaton will work, pigs will fly, Hell will freeze over and the Devil will go skiing.

Answer 59

"Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. ‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street, ‘I’ll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky."

Answer 60

Using a pronoun before saying what it refers to.

Answer 61

``` "This Be The Verse BY PHILIP LARKIN They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. ``` But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself."

Answer 62

Congeries is Latin for a heap, and in rhetoric it applies to any piling up of adjectives or nouns in a list.

Answer 63

"The expense of spirit2 in a waste of shame Is lust in action: and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; "

Answer 64

"Be near me when I fade away, To point the term of human strife, And on the low dark verge of life The twilight of eternal day. Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! "

Answer 65

Anaphora (an-AFF-or-a) is starting each sentence with the same words.

Answer 66

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, We shall fight on the seas and oceans [North and Atlantic], We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, We shall fight on the beaches [of Britain], We shall fight on the landing grounds [of Britain], We shall fight in the fields [of Kent] and in the streets [of London], We shall fight in the hills [Somewhere up North]. We shall never surrender.1