The Elements of Eloquence, Forsyth Flashcards
Alliteration
Repeated use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of closely connected words.
“What which they beat to follow faster, as amorous of their strokes.”
“It’s surprisingly simple to add alliteration.”
From latin ad- (addition) litera (letter)
Aposiopesis
An unfinished.…
Tidy your room, or else…
When in Rome…
Usually three reasons:
- you can’t go on
- you don’t want to go on
- you want to leave the audience hanging
From Greek aposiopao “to be silent after speaking, observe a deliberate silence”
Parataxis
Good plain English. It’s one sentence. Then another sentence. It’s subject verb object. The cat sat on the mat. Parataxis is the natural way of speaking English.
Hypotaxis
Using subordinate clause upon subordinate clause in a sentence.
Sentences hidden inside sentences like Russian dolls, clauses hidden in clauses, prepositions referring this way and that, until the bemused reader needs a diagram just to find out where the main verb is.
Strictly: the subordination of one clause to another.
Polysyndeton
Using lots of conjunctions.
St. Mark was very fond of polysyndeton and Jesus was more of an asyndeton chap:
“And Jesus took bread, ad blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying “Take, eat, this is my body.”
from Gk. poly- “many” and
syndeton “bound together with”
Asyndeton
Using no conjunctions, omitting a conjunction between parts of a sentence.
St. Mark was very fond of polysyndeton and Jesus was more of an asyndeton chap:
“And Jesus took bread, ad blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying “Take, eat, this is my body.”
from Gk. a (not) and sundeton “bound together with”
Hyperbaton
Words in odd order, often ending a sentence with a verb to avoid ending with a preposition.
Stone walls do not a prison make.
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
from Gk. hyper, “over” and bainein, “to step”
Periodic sentence
A very big sentence that is not complete until the end.
Can be made long by clauses, or by nouns;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve . . . (Shakespeare)
from Gk. periodos “going around, course”
Anadiplosis
Making the last word of one sentence the first word of the next.
(Yoda)
Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hatred.
Hatred leads to suffering.
from Gk. ana “again” and diploun “to double”
Polyptoton
The repeated use of one word as different parts of speech or in different grammatical forms.
Please please me.
Still counts if words have close etymological connection, ie do, done, sing, sung. Gazed a gazeless stare.
from Gk. poly, “many” and ptotos, “falling” or ptosis, “[grammatical] case”
Antithesis
First you mention one thing, then you mention another thing that opposes or contrasts with it.
Oscar Wilde:
Bad women bother one. Good women bore one.
Journalism is unreadable, literature is not read.
from Gk. anti “against” and thesis
“a setting” or tithenai “to set, place”
Diacope
Repeating a word or phrase with one or two intervening words.
Bond. James Bond.
Human, all too human.
To be, or not to be?
Extended diacope:
A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
from Gk. diakopto, “to cut in two, cut through”
Merism
When you don’t way what you’re talking about, but name all its parts.
Night and day.
Ladies and gentlemen.
The Blazon
A merism too far. Making a list of a lover’s body parts and attaching similies to them.
Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of auburn hair
With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green
Synaesthesia
Referring to a sense or sense object in terms of another sense.
She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.
THE LITTLE SISTER BY RAYMOND CHANDLER
Rhetorical questions
A statement formulated as a question but is not meant to be answered.
Are you blind?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Hendiadys
When you take an adjective and a noun, and change the adjective into another noun. Often hard to tell when it has really happened. A method of amplification that adds force.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Be a good fellow and close the door.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
from Gk. hen, “one” dia, “through” dis, “two” (“one by means of two”)
Epistrophe
Ending each sentence with the same word, phrase or sentence.
When the moon hits your eye/ like a big piece of pie/ that’s amore.
Most songs are epistrophes.
The opposite of anaphora.
from Gk. epi, “upon” and strophe, “turning”
(“wheeling about”)
Tricolon
Composing a sentence in three equal parts.
I came; I saw; I conquered.
Sun, sea and sex.
Nasty, brutish and short.
from Gk. tri, “three” and kolon, “clause”
Epizeuxis
Repeating a word immediately in the same sense.
Simple. Simple. Simple.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
from Gk. epi, “upon” and zeugnunai, “to yoke”
Syllepsis
Using one word in two incongruous ways.
I’ve barely room enough to lay my hat and a few friends. (Dorothy Parker)
Rend your heart, and not your garments. (Book of Job)
from Gk. syn, “together” and lepsis, “taking”
Isocolon
Two (or more) sentences that are structurally the same.
O for the classical balance! Woe to the modern mess!
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!
from Gk. isos, “equal” and kolon, “member”
Enallage
A deliberate grammatical mistake.
Do not go gentle into that good night. (Dylan Thomas)
Hope springs eternal in the human breast. (Alexander Pope)
Gk. “change”
Divagation
A digression.
Versification
Turning a passage into poetry.
Iamb
One of the four basic feet of poetry.
te-TUM
Trochee
One of the four basic feet of poetry.
TUM-te
Anapest
One of the four basic feet of poetry.
te-te-TUM
Dactyl
One of the four basic feet of poetry.
TUM-te-ty
Pentameter
One of the three basic meters of poetry.
Five in a row
Tetrameter
One of the three basic meters of poetry.
Four in a row.
Trimeter
One of the three basic meters of poetry.
Three is a row.
Zeugma
Omitting instances of a verb when it applies to more than one noun.
The good end happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means. (Wilde)
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet. (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. (Bible)
Gk. “a yoking”
Chiasmus
Repeating words, grammatical constructions, or concepts in reverse order.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
Tea for two and two for tea,
Me for you and you for me.
Gk. “a diagonal arrangement” (“to mark with the letter chi”)
Palindrome
A word, phrase or sentence that is the same read forwards or backwards.
Madam, I’m Adam.
Assonance
Repeating a vowel sound.
Deep Heat.
Blue Moon.
The thin and flimsy cousin of alliteration.
Catachresis
Use of a word in an incorrect way.
“I will speak daggers.” You can’t actually speak a dagger.…
“Dance me to the end of love.” (Leonard Cohen)
Gk. “misuse” from kata (“down) khrestai (“use”)
Litotes
Affirming something by denying its opposite. Understatement-by-negative.
“I won’t be sorry” for “I’m glad.”
from Gk litos, “plain, small, meagre”
Irony
Expressing meaning using language that normally expresses its opposite.
An untruth both parties know is untrue.
Metonymy
Referring to a thing by naming one of its attributes.
from meta, “change” and onoma, “name”
Metaphor
A word or phrase used to refer to something it does not literally denote, in order to bring out a similarity. A comparison which is implied by referring to one thing as another.
from meta “beyond, over” and pherein “to carry”
Synecdoche
Referring to someone by referring to one of their body parts.
An extreme form of metonymy.
“And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of your heart?” (Blake)
“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”
Gk. “to take with something else”
Transferred epithet
An adjective applied to the wrong noun.
“The man smoked a nervous cigarette.”
Epithets are usually transferred between a human and their surroundings.
Pleonasm
Using more words than are needed to convey the meaning.
“I will lift up mine eyes.”
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God.…”
Gk. “superfluous,” “redundant”
Epanalepsis
Beginning and ending with the same word or, more broadly, repetition after intervening words.
“The king is dead. Long live the king.”
from Gk. ep, “in addition,” ana, “again,”
and lepsis, “a taking”
Personification
Attributing human characteristics to something non-human.
Hyperbole
Exaggerated claims to statements (often not meant to be taken literally).
from hyper, “over” and bollein, “to throw”
Adynaton
An impossibility (a hyperbole taken so far that it becomes an impossibility.
And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
MATTHEW 19, VERSE 24
from Gk. a, “without” and dynasthai,
“to be able” (=”powerless”)
Prolepsis
Using a pronoun before saying what it refers to.
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.”
“They are not long, the days of wine and roses.”
Gk. “A preconception”
Congeries
A jumble, a disorderly collection.
Piling up nouns or adjectives in a heap.
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself. (Shakespeare)
Lat. “heap,” “pile”
Scesis Onomaton
A sentence consisting only of nouns or adjectives and without a main verb.
Space: the final frontier.
Like father, like son.
Anaphora
Starting each sentence with the same words.
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.
The opposite of epistrophe.
From Gk. ana “again” and phero “to bring or carry”
Peroration
The concluding part of a speech.
