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Ancient Greek
The
Ancient Greeks were heavily into rhetoric. It was all about making
people think and feel and believe what was useful to the state – we call it marketing. They turned it into a science, breaking persuasion down into
its constituent parts and codifying them as anacoluthon, hyperbaton etc. You might think that was all soooo 2,500 years ago, but we use
those figures of speech every day. Well, maybe not all at once.
TMESIS – ABSO-BL**DY-LUTELY
Separating the parts
of a compound word, as in "abso-bl**dy-lutely",
la-di-perishin’-da, Leonardo da bl***dy Vinci).
ALLUSION – OVER THERE
An implied or indirect reference (Another Place for
the House of Lords, the Other Place for Hell, Across the Pond
for the U.S., the Man Above for God, Over There
for the war in Europe (WWI)).
CATACHRESIS – WRONG WORD
Use of the
wrong word for the context. Merriam-Webster: The paper printed a
correction for the
previous day's catachresis: dubbing a local artist-philanthropist a
"socialist" when they meant "socialite." That's what I call a howler.
PARALEPSIS – NOT TO MENTION
You emphasize something by pretending not to notice it.
not
to mention...
to say nothing of...
It goes without saying...
I needn’t tell you...
Needs no introduction...
Let others speak of...
...but I’m not going to go into all that now.
To say nothing of what you did when...
HYPERBATON – BACKWARD RAN SENTENCES...
A "figure of speech in which the customary or logical order of words or phrases is inverted, especially for the sake of emphasis". They used to say of Time magazine: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind." The film Philadelphia Story may have been guying this when the Cary Grant character says: "No mean Machiavelli is smiling, cynical Sidney Kidd."
It used to be common in military usage: beds, army, two tier, soldiers, for the use of; Clutches, motor-cycles, soldiers for the use of. This can easily be parodied in other contexts: Soup, nourishing, the poor, for the use of.
This construction is becoming worryingly popular, November 2010:
That he survived was partly due to his charm and wit.
CIRCUMLOCUTION
Using a long, complicated explanation to avoid calling something by its name (that organisation of whose misdeeds we are well aware, the deed of darkness, She Who Must Be Obeyed, He Who Shall Not Be Named).
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Figures of Speech
