A Compilation Of The Figures of Speech

Submitted By: Charlene M. Sanchez Ma. Sherine V. Mercado Raul Lavitoria Jaimaica Solomon Angeline Barca Geno Gadon Nancy Concepcion Clarizza Mae Callejo Ma. Viviane Villavicencio

First Semester S.Y. 2011-2012

PREFACE

This is a compilation of The figures of speech. A semesters project in English 101 with Prof. Perla B. Morao. The contents of this project are contributions from each member of Group No.2 which were culled from their readings in the library.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

lliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds. It is an important tool for poets. It gives a musical quality and a rhythm to a poem. Alliteration also puts emphasis on certain words and helps to create mood. Also called head rhyme or initial rhyme, the repetition of the initial sounds (usually consonants) of stressed syllables in neighboring words or at short intervals within a line or passage, usually at word beginnings, as in "wild and woolly" or the line from Shelley's The Cloud: I bear light shade for the leaves when laid Sidelight: Alliteration has a gratifying effect on the sound, gives a reinforcement to stresses, and can also serve as a subtle connection or emphasis of key words in the line, but alliterated words should not "call attention" to themselves by strained usage. Examples:

There once was a witch of Willowby Wood,and a weird wild witch was she. -The Witch of Willowby Wood by Rowena Benett

Hear the loud alarm bells Brazen bells! What a tale of terror Their turbulency tells. -The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

Three wise old women were they, were they Who went to walk on a winter day. -Three wise old women by Elizabeth Corbett

In the deep sleep forest There were ferns There were feathers There was fur And a soft ripe peach -Alarm Clock by Eve Merriam

Alices aunt ate apples and acorns around August

Beckys beagle barked and bayed, becoming bothersome for Billy. Carries cat clawed her couch, creating chaos. Dans dog dove deep in the dam, drinking dirty water as he dove. Erics eagle eats eggs, enjoying each episode of eating. Freds friends fried Fritos for Fridays food. Garrys giraffe gobbled gooseberrys greedily, getting good at grabbing goodies. Hannahs home has heat hopefully. Isaacs ice cream is interesting and Isaac is imbibing it. Jesses jaguar is jumping and jiggling jauntily. Kims kids kept kiting Larrys lizard likes leaping leopards Mikes microphone made much music Nicks nephew needed new notebooks now not never Orsons owl out-performed ostriches Peters piglet pranced priggishly Quincys quilters quit quilting quickly Ralphs reindeer rose rapidly and ran round the room Saras seven sisters slept soundly in sand Tims took tons of tools to make toys for tots. Uncle Uris united union uses umbrellas Viviens very vixen-like and vexing Walter walked wearily while wondering where Wally was Xaviers x-rayed his xylophone. Yarvis yanked you at yoga, and Yvonne yelled. Zachary zeroed in on zoo keeping. "You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife." (advertising slogan for Country Life butter)

"Good men are gruff and grumpy, cranky, crabbed, and cross." (Clement Freud)

"A moist young moon hung above the mist of a neighboring meadow." (Vladimir Nabokov, Conclusive Evidence, 1951)

"Guinne ss is good for you." (advertising slogan)

"A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!" (Albert Brooks as Aaron Altman in Broadcast News, 1987)

"The soul selects her own society." (Emily Dickinson) "The Gramercy Gym is two flights up some littered, lightless stairs that look like a mugger's paradise, though undoubtedly they are the safest stairs in New York." (Edward Hoagland, "Heart's Desire," 1973)

"[S]he had no room for gaiety and ease. She had spent the golden time in grudging its going." (Dorothy Parker, "The Lovely Leave")

"Forget the most obvious problem with collegiate calorie counting, that studying Kierkegaard or Conrad after a dinner of seitan and soy chips would render even robust stomachs seasick, sometimes outright ill. And I wont harp on the clear link between vigorous salad consumption and sulkiness." (Marisha Pessl, "Seize the Weight." The New York Times, Oct. 6, 2006)

"I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me." (George Orwell, "A Hanging," 1931)

"Miss Twining teaches tying knots In neckerchiefs and noodles, And how to tell chrysanthemums From miniature poodles." (Dr Seuss, Jack Prelutsky, and Lane Smith, Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! Knopf, 1998)

"In a somer seson, whan soft was the sonne . . ." (William Langland, Piers Plowman, 14th century)

"The sibilant sermons of the snake as she discoursed upon the disposition of my sinner's soul seemed ceaseless." (Gregory Kirschling, The Gargoyle, 2008)

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

"The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life." (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

"Pompey Pipped at the Post as Pippo Pounces" (sports headline, Daily Express, Nov. 28, 2008

"Up the aisle, the moans and screams merged with the sickening smell of woolen black clothes worn in summer weather and green leaves wilting over yellow flowers." (Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1970)

"My style is public negotiations for parity, rather than private negotiations for position." (Jesse Jackson)

"Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed." (Bob Dylan, "Lay, Lady, Lay")

ntithesis is just the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in parallel structures. The repetition of clauses or idea by negation.

Examples:

This was the best of times, this was the worst of times. -from A tale of Two cities by Charles Dickens

Ah, how beautiful it is to fall in order to give you flight, to die in order to give you life.. My last farewell by Dr. Jose Rizal

He that finds his soul will lose it, and he that loses his soul for my sake will find it.

Matthew 10:39 To err is human, to forgive is divine. -by Alexander Pope A bliss in proof; and prov'd, a very woe;/ Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream. "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." (Goethe) "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." (advertising slogan) "Hillary has soldiered on, damned if she does, damned if she doesn't, like most powerful women, expected to be tough as nails and warm as toast at the same time." (Anna Quindlen, "Say Goodbye to the Virago." Newsweek, June 16, 2003) "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities) "I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dryrot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." (Jack London) "You're easy on the eyes Hard on the heart." (Terri Clark) "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." (Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at St. Louis, 1964)

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." (Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863)

"All the joy the world contains Has come through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself." (Shantideva)

"The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression." (Harold Pinter)

"And let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans." (Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare)

"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." (Goethe) "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." (advertising slogan)

"Hillary has soldiered on, damned if she does, damned if she doesn't, like most powerful women, expected to be tough as nails and warm as toast at the same time." (Anna Quindlen, "Say Goodbye to the Virago." Newsweek, June 16, 2003)

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dryrot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong

them. I shall use my time." (Jack London) "You're easy on the eyes Hard on the heart." (Terri Clark) "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." (Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at St. Louis, 1964) "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." (Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863) "All the joy the world contains Has come through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains has come through wanting pleasure for oneself." (Shantideva) "The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression." (Harold Pinter) And let my liver rather heat with wine than my heart cool with mortifying groans." (Gratiano in the Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare)

naphora is the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses. The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses. (Contrast with epiphora and epistrophe.) Examples: Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!---King John, 2.1.561

The monkey took the banana and ate it. "It" is anaphoric under the strict definition (it refers to the banana).

Pam went home because she felt sick. "She" is anaphoric (it refers to Pam). What is this? "This" can be considered exophoric (it refers to some object or situation near the speaker).

The dog ate the bird and it died. "It" is anaphoric and ambiguous (did the dog or bird die?).

"If a man has talent and can't use it, he's failed." "If a man has talent and can't use it, he's failed." (Tom Wolfe)

"No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother." (Margaret Sanger)

"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons." (Herodotus)

"Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made." (Otto von Bismarck)

"Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since." "Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since." (Abigail Adams)

"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun." (Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940)

"I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerkoff name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like

you, jerk-off." (Policeman in The Big Lebowski, 1998) "Anaphora will repeat an opening phrase or word; Anaphora will pour it into a mould (absurd)! Anaphora will cast each subsequent opening; Anaphora will last until it's tiring." (John Hollander, Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse. Yale Univ. Press, 1989) "Here comes the shadow not looking where it is going, And the whole night will fall; it is time. Here comes the little wind which the hour Drags with it everywhere like an empty wagon through leaves. Here comes my ignorance shuffling after them Asking them what they are doing." (W.S. Merwin, "Sire." The Second Four Books of Poems. Copper Canyon Press, 1993) "Sir Walter Raleigh. Good food. Good cheer. Good times." (slogan of the Sir Walter Raleigh Inn Restaurant, Maryland) "We saw the bruised children of these fathers clump onto our school bus, we saw the abandoned children huddle in the pews at church, we saw the stunned and battered mothers begging for help at our doors." (Scott Russell Sanders, "Under the Influence," 1989) "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." (Rick Blaine in Casablanca) "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, 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, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." (Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940)

"Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms, and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

"Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

"Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah--to 'undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.'" (President John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961) "But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition." (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream," 1963) "It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too." (Barack Obama, "The Audacity of Hope," July 27, 2004) "In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion!

"So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now! Turn them off right now! Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I'm

speaking to you now.

"Turn them off!" (Peter Finch as television anchorman Howard Beale in Network, 1976) "In school I am a luckless goosegirl, friendless and forlorn. In P.S. 71 I carry, weighty as a cloak, the ineradicable knowledge of my scandal--I am cross-eyed, dumb, an imbecile in arithmetic; in P.S. 71 I am publicly shamed in Assembly because I am caught not singing Christmas carols; in P.S. 71 I am repeatedly accused of deicide. But in the Park View Pharmacy, in the winter dusk, branches blackening in the park across the road, I am driving in rapture through the Violet Fairy Book and the Yellow Fairy Book, insubstantial chariots snatched from the box in the mud." (Cynthia Ozick, "A Drugstore in Winter") "Brylcreem, a little dab'll do ya, Brylcreem, you'll look so debonair! Brylcreem, the gals'll all pursue ya! They'll love to get their fingers in your hair." (advertising jingle, 1950s) "I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize." (Weird Science, 1985) "I'm not afraid to die. I'm not afraid to live. I'm not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to succeed. I'm not afraid to fall in love. I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm just afraid I might have to stop talking about myself for five minutes." (Kinky Friedman, When the Cat's Away, 1988) "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun." (Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940) "I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerkoff name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't

like you, jerk-off." (Policeman in The Big Lebowski, 1998) "Anaphora will repeat an opening phrase or word; Anaphora will pour it into a mould (absurd)! Anaphora will cast each subsequent opening; Anaphora will last until it's tiring." (John Hollander, Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse. Yale Univ. Press, 1989) "Here comes the shadow not looking where it is going, And the whole night will fall; it is time. Here comes the little wind which the hour Drags with it everywhere like an empty wagon through leaves. Here comes my ignorance shuffling after them Asking them what they are doing." (W.S. Merwin, "Sire." The Second Four Books of Poems. Copper Canyon Press, 1993) "Sir Walter Raleigh. Good food. Good cheer. Goodtimes." (slogan of the Sir Walter Raleigh Inn Restaurant, Maryland) "We saw the bruised children of these fathers clump onto our school bus, we saw the abandoned children huddle in the pews at church, we saw the stunned and battered mothers begging for help at our doors." (Scott Russell Sanders, "Under the Influence," 1989) "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." (Rick Blaine in Casablanca) "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shalldefend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fightin the hills; we shall never surrender." (Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940)

"Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms, and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

"Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

"Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah--to 'undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.'" (President John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961) "But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition." (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream," 1963) "It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope ofimmigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds;the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too." (Barack Obama, "The Audacity of Hope," July 27, 2004) "In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion!

"So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now! Turn them off right now! Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I'm

speaking to you now.

"Turn them off!" (Peter Finch as television anchorman Howard Beale in Network, 1976) "In school I am a luckless goosegirl, friendless and forlorn. In P.S. 71 I carry, weighty as a cloak, the ineradicable knowledge of my scandal--I am cross-eyed, dumb, an imbecile in arithmetic; in P.S. 71 I am publicly shamed in Assembly because I am caught not singing Christmas carols; in P.S. 71 I am repeatedly accused of deicide. But in the Park View Pharmacy, in the winter dusk, branches blackening in the park across the road, I am driving in rapture through the Violet Fairy Book and the Yellow Fairy Book, insubstantial chariots snatched from the box in the mud." (Cynthia Ozick, "A Drugstore in Winter") "Brylcreem, a little dab'll do ya, Brylcreem, you'll look so debonair! Brylcreem, the gals'll all pursue ya! They'll love to get their fingers in your hair." (advertising jingle, 1950s) "I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize." (Weird Science, 1985) "I'm not afraid to die. I'm not afraid to live. I'm not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to succeed.I'm not afraid to fall in love. I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm just afraid I might have to stop talking about myself for five minutes." (Kinky Friedman, When the Cat's Away, 1988) By Richard Nordquist, About.com Guide Alices aunt ate apples and acorns around August Beckys beagle barked and bayed, becoming bothersome for Billy. Carries cat clawed her couch, creating chaos. Dans dog dove deep in the dam, drinking dirty water as he dove. Erics eagle eats eggs, enjoying each episode of eating.

Freds friends fried Fritos for Fridays food. Garrys giraffe gobbled gooseberrys greedily, getting good at grabbing goodies. Hannahs home has heat hopefully. Isaacs ice cream is interesting and Isaac is imbibing it. Jesses jaguar is jumping and jiggling jauntily. Kims kids kept kiting Larrys lizard likes leaping leopards Mikes microphone made much music Nicks nephew needed new notebooks now not never Orsons owl out-performed ostriches Peters piglet pranced priggishly Quincys quilters quit quilting quickly Ralphs reindeer rose rapidly and ran round the room Saras seven sisters slept soundly in sand Tims took tons of tools to make toys for tots. Uncle Uris united union uses umbrellas Viviens very vixen-like and vexing Walter walked wearily while wondering where Wally was Xaviers x-rayed his xylophone. Yarvis yanked you at yoga, and Yvonne yelled. Zachary zeroed in on zoo keeping.

ssonance refers to the recurrence, in words that are close together, of the same vowel sound. Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words. The

repetition of vowel sounds, most commonly within a short passage of verse.

Examples: What a world of merriment their melody fortells!

No Bubble no trouble. Double, double toil and trouble Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

The beetle booms adown the glooms And bumps along the dusk.

the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven" And murmuring of innumerable bees Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Princess VII.203 The crumbling thunder of seas Robert Louis Stevenson That solitude which suits abstruser musings Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Frost at Midnight"

The scurrying furred small friars squeal in the dowse Dylan Thomas Dead in the middle of little Italy, little did we know that we riddled two middle men who didn't do diddily." Big Pun, "Twinz"

It's hot and it's monotonous. Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George, It's Hot Up Here

tundi tur unda Catullus 11 on a proud round cloud in white high night E.E. Cummings, if a Cheer Rules Elephant Angel Child Should Sit

I've never seen so many Dominican women with cinnamon tans Will Smith, "Miami" I bomb atomicallySocrates' philosophies and hypotheses can't define how I be droppin' these mockeries. Inspectah Deck, from the Wu-Tang Clan's "Triumph."

Up in the arroyo a rare owl's nest I did spy, so I loaded up my shotgun and watched owl feathers fly Jon Wayne, Texas Assonance

Gradually kids who talked about Narnia kept getting balmier and balmier C.S. Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Yo, I'm a hot and bothered astronaut crashing while Jacking off to buffering vids of Asher Roth eating apple sauce Earl Sweatshirt of OFWGKTA- "Earl"

Hear the mellow wedding bells from Edgar Allen Poe Try to light the fire

I lie down by the side of my bride Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese Pink Floyds Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dark fox gone to ground It's hot and it's monotonous. by Sondheim The crumbling thunder of seas by Robert Louis Stevenson "If I bleat when I speak it's because I just got . . . fleeced." (Al Swearengen in Deadwood, 2004)

"It beats . . . as it sweeps . . . as it cleans!" (advertising slogan for Hoover vacuum cleaners, 1950s)

"Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea." (W.B. Yeats, "Byzantium")

"Soft language issued from their spitless lips as they swished in low circles round and round the field, winding hither and thither through the weeds, dragging their long tails amid the rattling canisters." (James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916)

"The spider skins lie on their sides, translucent and ragged, their legs drying in knots." (Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm)

"Flash with a rash gimme my cash flickin' my ash Runnin with my money, son, go out with a blast." (Busta Rhymes, "Gimme Some More")

"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. . . .

"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." (Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night") "The setting sun was licking the hard bright machine like some great invisible beast on its knees." (John Hawkes, Death, Sleep, and the Traveler) "I must confess that in my quest I felt depressed and restless." (Thin Lizzy, "With Love") "In the over-mastering loneliness of that moment, his whole life seemed to him nothing but vanity." (Robert Penn Warren, Night Rider) "A lanky, six-foot, pale boy with an active Adam's apple, ogling Lo and her orange-brown bare midriff, which I kissed five minutes later, Jack." (Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita) "Strips of tinfoil winking like people" (Sylvia Plath, "The Bee Meeting") "If I bleat when I speak it's because I just got . . . fleeced." (Al Swearengen in Deadwood, 2004) "It beats . . . as it sweeps . . . as it cleans!" (advertising slogan for Hoover vacuum cleaners, 1950s "Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea." (W.B. Yeats, "Byzantium") "Soft language issued from their spitless lips as they swished in low circles round and round the field, winding hither and thither through the weeds, dragging their long tails amid the rattling canisters." (James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916)

"The spider skins lie on their sides, translucent and ragged, their legs drying in knots." (Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm)

"Flash with a rash gimme my cash flickin' my ash Runnin with my money, son, go out with a blast." (Busta Rhymes, "Gimme Some More")

"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. . . .

"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." (Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night") "The setting sun was licking the hard bright machine like some great invisible beast on its knees." (John Hawkes, Death, Sleep, and the Traveler) "I must confess that in my quest I felt depressed and restless." (Thin Lizzy, "With Love") "In the over-mastering loneliness of that moment, his whole life seemed to him nothing but vanity." (Robert Penn Warren, Night Rider) "A lanky, six-foot, pale boy with an active Adam's apple, ogling Lo and her orange-brown bare midriff, which I kissed five minutes later, Jack." (Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita) "Strips of tinfoil winking like people" (Sylvia Plath, "The Bee Meeting") And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day Nor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone, And lives at last were washing away:

To the shrouds they took,they shook in the hurling and horrible airs. Is out with it! Oh, We lash with the best or worst Word last! How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe Will, mouthed to flesh-burst, Gush!flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet, Brim, in a flash, full!Hither then, last or first

postrophe addresses personified objects as real persons, the absent as if they were present, and the dead as if they were alive. Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character. It is directing the attention away from the audience and to a personified abstraction. Addressing a thing, an abstraction or a person not present. Examples: Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and Dreadful, for thou art not so.. -from Death, be not proud of by John Donne Farewell, my beloved Philippines, the sorrow of my sorrows. Time, you old gypsy man, will you not stay? I give you thanks, Oh nature, because you have not given me any high gift Where, O death, thy sting? where, O death, thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:55, (Saint) Paul of Tarsus "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! / Thou art the ruins of the noblest man / That ever lived in the tide of times." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1

"Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1

"To what green altar, O mysterious priest, / Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, / And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?" John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death!" Sir Walter Raleigh, A Historie of the World "Roll on, thou dark and deep blue Ocean -- roll!" Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

"Well hello jet plane!", Caitlin Fitzgerald. "And you, Eumaeus..." the Odyssey "O My friends, there is no friend." Montaigne, originally attributed to Aristotle[3] "Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!", from Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville "O black night, nurse of the golden eyes!" Electra in Euripides' Electra (c. 410 BCE, line 54), in the translation by David Kovacs (1998).

"Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief." [(Queen Isabela in Edward II by Christopher Malowe)]

"Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee . . .." (William Wordsworth, "London, 1802")

"Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art" (John Keats)

"Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!" (Edgar Allan Poe, "To Science")

"Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. . . . Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead." (James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

"Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own. (Lorenz Hart, "Blue Moon") "O stranger of the future! O inconceivable being! whatever the shape of your house, however you scoot from place to place, no matter how strange and colorless the clothes you may wear, I bet nobody likes a wet dog either. I bet everyone in your pub, even the children, pushes her away." (Billy Collins, "To a Stranger Born in Some Distant Country Hundreds of Years from Now") Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky." (Jane Taylor, "The Star," 1806) "Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone Without a dream in my heart Without a love of my own." (Lorenz Hart, "Blue Moon") "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 nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness." (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818) "O western wind, when wilt thou blow That the small rain down can rain?" (anonymous, 16th c.)

"Apostrophe! we thus address More things than I should care to guess. Apostrophe! I did invoke Your figure even as I spoke." (John Hollander, Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse. Yale Univ. Press, 1989)

"Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art" (John Keats)

"Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." (James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

"I believe it is the lost wisdom of my grandfather Whose ways were his own and who died before I could ask.

"Forerunner, I would like to say, silent pilot, Little dry death, future, Your indirections are as strange to me As my own. I know so little that anything You might tell me would be a revelation." (W.S. Merwin, "Sire." The Second Four Books of Poems. Copper Canyon Press, 1993) "Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief." (Queen Isabella in Edward II by Christopher Marlowe) "O stranger of the future! O inconceivable being! whatever the shape of your house, however you scoot from place to place, no matter how strange and colorless the clothes you may wear, I bet nobody likes a wet dog either. I bet everyone in your pub, even the children, pushes her away."

(Billy Collins, "To a Stranger Born in Some Distant Country Hundreds of Years from Now") "Dear Ella Our Special First Lady of Song You gave your best for so long." (Kenny Burrell, "Dear Ella")

hiasmus is a parallelism in sentence element of similar or contrasting ideas, so arranged that the parallel elements of the second part of the structure are in inverted order. A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed. Examples: He was slow in resolution, in performance quick. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. Be swift about hearing, about speaking slow. "Nice to see you, to see you, nice!" (catchphrase of British TV entertainer Bruce Forsyth) "You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget." (Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 2006) "In the end, the true test is not the speeches a president delivers; its whether the president delivers on the speeches." (Hillary Clinton, March 2008) "I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction's job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." (David Foster Wallace) "I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me." (Ovid)

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair." (William Shakespeare, Macbeth I.i)

"Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." (Samuel Johnson)

"If black men have no rights in the eyes of the white men, of course the whites can have none in the eyes of the blacks." (Frederick Douglass, "An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage")

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order." (Alfred North Whitehead)

"Do I love you because you're beautiful? Or are you beautiful because I love you?" (Oscar Hammerstein II, "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?")

"The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults." (Peter De Vries)

"Don't sweat the petty things--and don't pet the sweaty things." (anonymous)

"People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power." (President Bill Clinton, August 2008)

"You can take it out of the country, but you can't take the country out of it." (slogan for Salem cigarettes)

"Friendly Americans win American friends." (United States Travel Service, 1963)

"Never let a fool kiss you--or a kiss fool you." (Joey Adams, quoted by Mardy Grothe in Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You. Viking, 1999)

"My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington." (Barack Obama)

"I am stuck on Band-Aid, and Band-Aid's stuck on me." (advertising jingle for Band-Aid bandages)

"Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." (President John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961)

yperbole is a figure of speech that exaggerates an idea so vividly that the reader has in instant picture. An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect. Examples: Is this the face that launched a thousand ships And burnt topless towers of Ilium? -Christopher Marlowe When Susanna Jones wears red A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night Walks once again. -from When Sue Wears Red by Langston Hughes The French woman worked her fingers to the bone in order to replace the lost necklace, only to discover later that the necklace was only an imitation. His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear'd arm/ Crested the world, his voice was propertied/ As all the tuned spheres...---Antony and Cleopatra, 5.2.82 "at night she has to get the paint scraper to take it off." Beth Atkins "by the time she gets it all on, it's time to take it off!" Josh W. "I have seen this river so wide it had only one bank." - Mark Twain "Marilyn Manson freaked out when he saw her!" Nizam, from Bukit Panjang Gov't H. S., Singapore "she bought out Mary Kay just to have enough makeup for one day!" Andrea, from somewhere in South Dakota

"she broke a chisel trying to get it off last night!" Johnny, from Prescott Middle School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

"she could pass as a clown at the circus." Adriene T. "she has to use a sandblaster to get it off at night." Margaret "she leaves a colour trail behind her when she walks!" Grant K. "she looks like my grandmother!" Shireen, from Singapore "she weighs 50 pounds more when she's done!" Alex "that I haven't seen her real face for years ..." Nivedita "the artist formerly known as Prince gets ideas from her." Ashley Christine "when she smiles her cheeks fall off." Ed "when she smiles, cracks the size of the Grand Canyon form in the surface." Ashley Brosseau

"when she takes it off she loses 30 pounds!" Benny H. "when she takes it off, my mom doesn't recognize her." Ashley, from Knoxville, Tennessee

"you can't tell where the face begins and ends!" Cara K. "you could scrape off just the outer layer and put it on five other girls." Scott J. He is as skinny as a toothpick. He is older than the hills. He is older than the hills. Her brain is the size of a pea. Her smile was a mile wide. Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, (The Concord Hymn)

He's 900 years old. He's got tons of money. His teeth were blinding white. I am so hungry I could eat a horse. I am so tired I could sleep for a year.

I ate the whole cow. I don't have two cents to rub together. I had a ton of homework. I had to walk 15 miles to school in the snow, uphill. I had to walk fifteen miles uphill both ways, in snow five feet deep. I had worse than that in my eye. I have a million things to do today. I have a million things to do. I have told you a million times not to lie! I told you a thousand times! I waited in line for centuries. I was so embarrassed, I thought I might die. I will die if she asks me to dance. I will die if she asks me to dance. If I cant buy that new game, I will die. If I don't get these jeans, I will DIE! If thou dost slander her and torture me, Never pray more; abandon all remorse; On horrors head accumulate; Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed; For nothing canst thou to damnation add Greater than that. ~ Shakespeare (Othello)

I'm really busy, I am doing like ten million things at the same time. I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse right now. It is going to take a bazillion years to get through Medical School. it took him two seconds to drive here. It took light years for this to work. I've told you a million times don't exaggerate.

Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together. ~ Kent Brockman (The Simpsons)

Maybe I'll do it in a million years. My car is a million years old. My eyes widened at the sight of the mile-high ice cream cones we were having for dessert.

Running faster than the speed of light. She cried for days. She is as big as an elephant! She is big as an elephant! That joke is so old, the last time I heard it I was riding on a dinosaur. That new car costs a bazillion dollars. The package took forever to arrive in the mail. The whole world was staring at me. There are millions of other things to do. These books in your bag weigh a ton. They ran like greased lightning. This car goes faster than the speed of light. We are so poor; we dont have two cents to rub together. You could be Miss Universe. You could have knocked me over with a feather. "I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking from head to foot, and could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far." (Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi")

"He snorted and hit me in the solar plexus. "I bent over and took hold of the room with both hands and spun it. When I had it nicely spinning I gave it a full swing and hit myself on the back of the head with the floor." (Raymond Chandler, "Pearls Are a Nuisance," 1939)

"Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together." (Kent Brockman, The Simpsons)

"A man can have a belly you could house commercial aircraft in and a grand total of eight greasy strands of hair, which he grows real long and combs across the top of his head so that he looks, when viewed from above, like an egg in the grasp of a giant spider, plus this man can have B.O. to the point where he interferes with radio transmissions, and he will still be convinced that, in terms of attractiveness, he is borderline Don Johnson." (Dave Barry, "Revenge of the Pork Person," 1988)

"The only way to get across the road is to be born there. All the ped-xing signs say DONT WALK, all of them, all the time. That is the message, the content of Los Angeles: dont walk. Stay inside. Dont walk. Drive. Dont walk. Run! I tried the cabs. No use. The cabbies are all Saturnians who arent even sure whether this is a right planet or a left planet. The first thing you have to do, every trip, is teach them how to drive." (Martin Amis, Money, 1984)

"Daphne, you can't go. You have to stay. I've only just recently realized how important you are to us. You see, if you go, Dad and I will kill each other. I'm not just tossing outhyperbole here. I'm speaking in the most literal sense: Dad and I, both dead. Only he'll be lying there with a bacteria-ridden sponge protruding from his mouth like a bloated tongue!" (Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Frasier Crane in "Come Lie With Me." Frasier, 1996)

"My toaster has never once worked properly in four years. I follow the instructions and push two slices of bread down in the slots, and seconds later they rifle upwards. Once they broke the nose of a woman I loved dearly." (Woody Allen, "My Speech to the Graduates." The New York Times, Aug. 10, 1979)

Your mama's hair is so short she could stand on her head and her hair wouldn't touch the ground. . .

Your father is so low he has to look up to tie his shoes. You're so low down you need an umbrella to protect yourself from ant piss. These images defy rational understanding and a square, sane conception of space; but they convey, in no uncertain terms, the absolute absence of height. Hyperbole makes extraordinary demands on the imagination." (Onwuchekwa Jemie, Yo Mama! New Raps, Toasts, Dozens, Jokes, and Children's Rhymes From Urban Black America. Temple Univ. Press, 2003) "Kingsley fell over. And this was no brisk trip or tumble. It was an act of colossal administration. First came a kind of slow-leak effect, giving me the immediate worry that Kingsley, when fully deflated, would spread out into the street on both sides of the island, where there were cars, trucks, sneezing buses. Next, as I grabbed and tugged, he felt like a great ship settling on its side: would it right itself, or go under? Then came an impression of overall dissolution and the loss of basic physical coherence. I groped around him, looking for places to shore him up, but every bit of him was falling, dropping, seeking the lowest level, like a mudslide." (Martin Amis, describing his father) "I'm experienced now, professional. Jaws been broke, been knocked down a couple of times, I'm bad! Been chopping trees. I done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator. That's right. I have wrestled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. That's bad! Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick! I'm so mean I make medicine sick!" (Muhammad Ali) "O for the gift of Rostand's Cyrano to invoke the vastness of that nose alone as it cleaves the giant screen from east to west, bisects it from north to south. It zigzags across our horizon like a bolt of fleshy lightning." (John Simon, review of Barbra Streisand, 1976) "she broke a chisel trying to get it off last night!" Johnny, from Prescott Middle School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

"she bought out Mary Kay just to have enough makeup for one day!" Andrea, from somewhere in South Dakota

"Marilyn Manson freaked out when he saw her!" Nizam, from Bukit Panjang Gov't H. S., Singapore

"when she takes it off, my mom doesn't recognize her." Ashley, from Knoxville, Tennessee

"she has to use a sandblaster to get it off at night." Margaret "that I haven't seen her real face for years ..." Nivedita "when she smiles her cheeks fall off." Ed "she leaves a colour trail behind her when she walks!" Grant K. "you can't tell where the face begins and ends!" Cara K. "when she smiles, cracks the size of the Grand Canyon form in the surface." Ashley Brosseau

"by the time she gets it all on, it's time to take it off!" Josh W. "she weighs 50 pounds more when she's done!" Alex "at night she has to get the paint scraper to take it off." Beth Atkins "when she takes it off she loses 30 pounds!" Benny H. "she could pass as a clown at the circus." Adriene T. "the artist formerly known as Prince gets ideas from her." Ashley Christine "you could scrape off just the outer layer and put it on five other girls." Scott J. "she looks like my grandmother!" Shireen, from Singapore " they've already nailed the coffin shut". Michelle S., from Woodbridge, Virginia, USA "she gets a seniors discount at the nursing home!" Ashley, from Knoxville, Tennessee "her wrinkles weigh more than she does!" Elizabeth "she showed us a yearbook from 1500 B.C.!" Grant K. "she considers Shakespeare to be 'new-fangled modern art'!" Cara K. "she personally knew Shakespeare!" Ashley Brosseau "she remembers the tragedy when the dinosaurs died!" Alex "she has wrinkles on her palms." Beth Atkins

"she's mentioned in the Old Testament." Kaysie O'Brien "she can't even remember her own name!" Ashley Morris "she taught cave men to start a fire." Aaron H. "she edited the bible for mistakes!" Ashley Nichols "she claims that she invented the question mark!" Jacob Smith "we looked up the word 'ancient', and there was full definition with her name and a big picture of her smiling..." Mallory, from Dexter, Missouri

"she knows how to speak cave-man language!" Meg, Shepaug Valley School, Roxbury USA

magery - The elements in a literary work used to evoke mental images, not only of the visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well. While most commonly used in reference to figurative language, imagery is a variable term which can apply to any and all components of a poem that evoke sensory experience, whether figurative or literal, and also applies to the concrete things so imaged.

Examples: From the family tree of old school hip hop Kick off your shoes and relax your socks The rhymes will spread just like a pox Cause the music is live like an electric shock I took a walk around the world to Ease my troubled mind I left my body laying somewhere In the sands of time I watched the world float to the dark Side of the moon I feel there is nothing I can do After that first sale, his cash register never stopped ringing. He could hear his world crashing down when he heard the news about her. He could hear the footsteps of doom nearing. He could never escape from the iron grip of desire. He fell down like an old tree falling down in a storm.

He felt like the flowers were waving him a hello. He fumed and charged like an angry bull. He lost his voice in the cacophony of conformity. Her face blossomed when she caught a glance of him. She was like a breath of fresh air infusing life back into him. She was like a melody in flesh and blood. The ants began their daily marching drill. The eery silence was shattered by her scream. The F-16 swooped down like an eagle after its prey. The lake was left shivering by the touch of morning wind. The music coursed through us, shaking our bodies as if it came from within us. The sky looked like the untouched canvas of an artist. The taste of that first defeat was bitter indeed. The word spread like leaves in a storm. They fought like cats and dogs.

rony is the general name given to literary techniques that involve differences between appearance and reality, expectation and result, meaning and intention. The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea. Use of word in a way that conveys a meaning opposite to its usual meaning. It is expressing a meaning directly contrary to that suggested by the words. Types a. Verbal Irony- words are used to suggest the opposite of what is meant. In everyday speech, verbal irony is easily recognized because the listener has the speakers tone of voice and facial expression to aid him. b. Irony of Situation-in this type of irony, an event occurs that directly contradicts the expectations of the characters, the reader, or the audience. c. Dramatic Irony-Here, there is a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true.

Examples: He was no notorious malefactor, but he had been twice on the pillory, and once burnt in the hand for trifling oversights.---Direccions for Speech and Style Commander William T. Riker: Charming woman! Lt. Commander Data: [voice-over] The tone of Commander Riker's voice makes me suspect that he is not serious about finding Ambassador T'Pel charming. My experience suggests that in fact he may mean the exact opposite of what he says. Irony is a form of expression I have not yet been able to master. ("Data's Day," Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1991) "Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard." (W. H. Auden, "The Unknown Citizen") "Situational irony, sometimes called irony of events, is most broadly defined as a situation where the outcome is incongruous with what was expected, but it is also more generally understood as a situation that includes contradictions or sharp contrasts. . . . An example would be a man who takes a step aside in order to avoid getting sprinkled by a wet dog, and falls into a swimming pool." (Lars Ellestrm, Divine Madness. Bucknell Univ. Press, 2002) "Not all forms of irony are conscious, intentional or planned. For example, irony also occurs serendipitously through unintended and unexpected circumstances or through the evolution of situations. Situational irony focuses on the surprising and inevitable fragility of the human condition, in which the consequences of actions are

often the opposite of what was expected." (David Grant, The Sage Handbook of Organizational Discourse. Sage, 2004) "Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes anirony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends." (Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, 1975) "Situational irony entails a certain incongruity between what a person says, believes, or does and how, unbeknownst to that person, things actually are. Oedipus vows to discover Laius' murderer, unaware that Laius was his father and that he himself is guilty of patricide. Whatever the precise nature of the incongruity involved in situational irony,verbal and situational irony loosely share a conceptual core of incongruity, often tending toward polar opposition, between two elements, such as a semblance of things and reality.

"Dramatic irony may be further distinguished as a type of situational irony; it is simply when situational irony occurs in a drama. The incongruity is between what a dramatic character says, believes, or does and how unbeknownst to that character, the dramatic reality is. The example in the preceding paragraph is, then, specifically of dramatic irony." (David Wolfsdorf, Trials of Reason: Plato and the Crafting of Philosophy. Oxford Univ. Press, 2008) "A Wimbledon commentator may say, 'Ironically, it was the year he was given a wild-card entry, and not as a seeded player, that the Croatian won the title.' The irony here refers, like linguistic irony, to a doubleness of sense or meaning. It is as though there is the course of events or human intentions, involving our awarding of rankings and expectations, that exists alongside another order of fate beyond our predictions. This is an irony of situation, or an irony of existence." (Claire Colebrook, Irony. Routledge, 2004)

Etymologically, irony comes from the Greek word for dissembling, and the ancient Greeks used it in reference to that abiding preoccupation of theirs, the gap between appearance and reality, or between truth and belief. What interested them most wasdramatic irony, which is what occurs when the reader or the audience knows something that a character doesn't (Oedipus was the favorite example); far from being funny, this was for the Greeks the stuff of tragedy." (Charles McGrath, "No Kidding: Does Irony Illuminate Or Corrupt?" The New York Times, Aug. 5, 2000)

Kampenfeldt: This is a grave matter, a very grave matter. It has just been reported to me that you've been expressing sentiments hostile to the Fatherland. Schwab: What, me sir? Kampenfeldt: I warn you, Schwab, such treasonable conduct will lead you to a concentration camp. Schwab: But sir, what did I say? Kampenfeldt: You were distinctly heard to remark, "This is a fine country to live in." Schwab: Oh, no, sir. There's some mistake. No, what I said was, "This is a fine country to live in." Kampenfeldt: Huh? You sure? Schwab: Yes sir. Kampenfeldt: I see. Well, in future don't make remarks that can be taken two ways. (Raymond Huntley and Eliot Makeham in Night Train to Munich, 1940)

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room." (Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

Woman: I started riding these trains in the forties. Those days a man would give up his seat for a woman. Now we're liberated and we have to stand. Elaine: It's ironic. Woman: What's ironic? Elaine: This, that we've come all this way, we have made all this progress, but you know we've lost the little things, the niceties.

Woman: No, I mean what does ironic mean? Elaine: Oh. ("The Subway," Seinfeld, Jan. 8 1992) "I'm aware of the irony of appearing on TV in order to decry it." (Sideshow Bob, The Simpsons) "Math was my worst subject because I could never persuade the teacher that my answers were meant ironically." (Calvin Trillin) "We're conceived in irony. We float in it from the womb. It's the amniotic fluid. It's the silver sea. It's the waters at their priest-like task, washing away guilt and purpose and responsibility. Joking but not joking. Caring but not caring. Serious but not serious." (Hilary in The Old Country by Alan Bennett, 1977) Lyn Cassady: It's okay, you can "attack" me. Bob Wilton: What's with the quotation fingers? It's like saying I'm only capable of ironicattacking or something. (The Men Who Stare at Goats, 2009) It is sometimes said that we live in an age of irony. Irony in this sense may be found, for example, all throughout The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Suppose you hear a political candidate give a terribly long speech, one that rambles on and on without end. Afterward you might turn to a friend sitting next to you, roll your eyes, and say, 'Well,that was short and to the point, wasn't it?' You are being ironic. You are counting on your friend to turn the literal meaning of your expression, to read it as exactly the opposite of what your words actually mean. . . .

"When irony works, it helps to cement social bonds and mutual understanding because the speaker and hearer of irony both know to turn the utterance, and they know that the other one knows they will turn the utterance. . . .

"Irony is a kind of winking at each other, as we all understand the game of meaning reversal that is being played." (Barry Brummett, Techniques of Close Reading. Sage, 2010) Rachel Berry: Mr. Schuester, do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to give the lead solo in "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" to a boy in a wheelchair? Artie Abrams: I think Mr. Schue is using irony to enhance the performance. Rachel Berry: There's nothing ironic about show choir! (Pilot episode of Glee, 2009) "An ironic man, with his sly stillness, and ambuscading ways, more especially an ironic young man, from whom it is least expected, may be viewed as a pest to society." (Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh, 183334) "It is a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon, launder became a dirty word." (William Zinsser) "Direct expression, with no tricks, gimmickry, or irony, has come to be interpreted ironically because the default interpretive apparatus says, 'He can't really mean THAT!'When a culture becomes ironic about itself en masse, simple statements of brutal fact, simple judgments of hate or dislike become humorous because they unveil the absurdity, 'friendliness,' and caution of normal public expression. It's funny because it's true. Honestly. We're all upside down now." (R. Jay Magill, Jr., Chic Ironic Bitterness. Univ. of Michigan Press, 2007)

itotes is a mild negative understatement, intended to suggest a strong affirmative. A type of meiosis (understatement) in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary, as in "not unhappy" or "a poet of no small stature. A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

Examples: After seeing my report card, my father said in no uncertain terms I should start studying. A grade school boy won first place in an oratorical contest and his grandfather said, Not a bad compliment! A teacher tells a lazy student, Your performance in the first grading is not bad at all, but a little more attention to your studies wont hurt you. It wont be easy to find crocodiles in the dark. Its not impossible. Shes no doll. Shes no idiot. Shes not a bad writer at all. She's not the brightest girl in the class. (She's stupid!) Topping the board exam is no mean feat! (delightedly) Im not unhappy. Go ahead. The dog wont eat you. He is no Einstein. He is not the kindest person Ive met. He is not unaware of what you said behind his back. He is not unlike his dad. I have a few friends. (when youre standing with a dozen)

He's not the most handsome fellow! (he's ugly!)

They aren't the happiest couple around. (they're unhappy) That is no ordinary boy. That was no small issue.

That wasnt surprising. (with eyes rolling and a surprised expression. Imagine Chandler.)

Thats no mean feat. Thats no small accomplishment. Thats not a meager sum. The city is not unclean. The weather is not unpleasant at all. This is no minor matter. Youre not doing badly. Youre not unattractive. "With a vigorous and sudden snatch, I brought my assailant harmlessly, his full length, on the not over clean ground--for we were now in the cow yard." (Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855)

"Because though no beauty by fashion-mag standards, the ample-bodied Ms. Klause, we agreed, was a not unclever, not unattractive young woman, not unpopular with her classmates both male and female." (John Barth, "The Bard Award," in The Development: Nine Stories. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008)

"for life's not a paragraph And death I think is no parenthesis" (e.e. cummings, "since feeling is first")

"I am not unaware how the productions of the Grub Street brotherhood have of late years fallen under many prejudices." (Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub, 1704)

"I'm not doing this for my health." (O.J. Simpson, in a paid appearance at a horror comic book convention)

"Keep an eye on your mother whom we both know doesn't have both oars in the water." (Jim Harrison, The Road Home. Grove Press, 1999)

"Litotes describes the object to which it refers not directly, but through the negation of the opposite. . . . "The account given in various rhetorical textbooks reveals a picture of the rhetorical figure litotes which is--to put it aptly--'not very clear.' . . . "I want to claim that the rhetorical figure litotes is one of those methods which are used to talk about an object in a discreet way. It clearly locates an object for the recipient, but it avoids naming it directly." (J.R. Bergmann, "Veiled Morality," in Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew and John Heritage. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992)

"'Not a bad day's work on the whole,' he muttered, as he quietly took off his mask, and his pale, fox-like eyes glittered in the red glow of the fire. 'Not a bad day's work.'" (Baroness Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1905)

"Now we have a refuge to go to. A refuge that the Cylons know nothing about! It won't be an easy journey." (Battlestar Galactica, 2003)

"Oh, you think you're so special because you get to play Picture Pages up there? Well, my five year old daughter could do that and let me tell you, she's not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed." (Allison Janney as Bren in Juno, 2007)

"The grave's a fine a private place, But none, I think, do there embrace." (Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress")

"Understated instead of hyperbolic, [litotes] often seems to turn attention away from itself, like its cousin, paralipsis, which emphasizes something by pretending to ignore it, and it can disarm potential opponents and avoid controversy; yet it emphasizes whatever it touches." (Elizabeth McCutcheon, "Denying the Contrary: More's Use of Litotes in the Utopia," in Essential Articles for the Study of Thomas More, 1977)

"We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all." (Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address to the Nation, January 20, 1989)

"We're all being lobotomized by this country's most influential industry! It's just thrown in the towel on any endeavor to do anything that doesn't include the courting of twelve-year-old boys. Not even the smart twelve-year-olds--the stupid ones! The idiots--of which there are plenty, thanks in no small measure to this network! So why don't you just change the channel? Turn off the TV. Do it right now. Go ahead." (Judd Hirsch as Wes Mendell in the pilot episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, 2006)

"What we know partakes in no small measure of the nature of what has so happily been called the unutterable or ineffable, so that any attempt to utter or eff it is doomed to fail, doomed, doomed to fail." (Samuel Beckett)

I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the ladies; for, whilst you are proclaiming peace and good-will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives." (Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams, May 7, 1776)

"Oh, you think you're so special because you get to play Picture Pages up there? Well, my five year old daughter could do that and let me tell you, she's not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed." (Allison Janney as Bren in Juno, 2007)

"Keep an eye on your mother whom we both know doesn't have both oars in the water." (Jim Harrison, The Road Home. Grove Press, 1999)

"I'm not doing this for my health." (O.J. Simpson, in a paid appearance at a horror comic book convention)

etaphor makes a direct comparison of two unlike things that have something in common. A metaphor does not include the words like, as, resemblance or similar to. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one object or idea is applied to another, thereby suggesting a likeness or analogy between them. An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common. Examples: Even at night-time, mama is a sunrise.- Evelyn Tooley Hughes Stars are great drops of golden dew.-Harlem night song "Between the lower east side tenements the sky is a snotty handkerchief." (Marge Piercy, "The Butt of Winter") "The streets were a furnace, the sun an executioner." (Cynthia Ozick, "Rosa") "But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill." (William Sharp, "The Lonely Hunter") "I can mingle with the stars, and throw a party on Mars; I am a prisoner locked up behind Xanax bars." (Lil Wayne, "I Feel Like Dying") "Love is an alchemist that can transmute poison into food--and a spaniel that prefers even punishment from one hand to caresses from another." (Charles Colton, Lacon) "Men's words are bullets, that their enemies take up and make use of against them." (George Savile, Maxims) "A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind." (William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors) "The rain came down in long knitting needles." (Enid Bagnold, National Velvet)

"Language is a road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going." (Rita Mae Brown)

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." (Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863)

Lenny: Hey, maybe there is no cabin. Maybe it's one of them metaphorical things. Carl: Oh yeah, yeah. Like maybe the cabin is the place inside each of us, created by our goodwill and teamwork. Lenny: Nah, they said there would be sandwiches. (The Simpsons)

"Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food." (Austin O'Malley, Keystones of Thought)

"Ice formed on the butler's upper slopes." (P.G. Wodehouse, The Color of the Woosters, 1938)

"Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations." (Faith Baldwin, Face Toward the Spring, 1956)

"But silk has nothing to do with tobacco. Its a metaphor, a metaphor that means something like, 'smooth as silk.' Somebody in an advertising agency dreamt up the name 'Silk Cut' to suggest a cigarette that wouldnt give you a sore throat or a hacking cough or lung cancer." (David Lodge, Nice Work. Viking, 1988)

"From its Dutch beginnings in the 17th century, New York was distinguished among the European colonies by its diversity. Conceptually, the melting pot as a metaphor for mixing disparate cultures can be traced at least as far back as 1782 to a naturalized New Yorker from France . . . later to DeWitt Clinton and Ralph Waldo Emerson." (Sam Roberts, "The Melting Metaphor." Only in New York. St. Martin's, 2009)

"The river runs through the language, and we speak of its influence in every conceivable context. It is employed to characterise life and death, time and destiny; it is used as a metaphor for continuity and dissolution, for intimacy and transitoriness, for art and history, for poetry itself. In The Principles of Psychology (1890) William James first coined the phrase 'stream of consciousness' in which 'every definite image of the mind is steeped . . . in the free water that flows around it.' Thus 'it flows' like the river itself. Yet the river is also a token of the unconscious, with its suggestion of depth and invisible life." (Peter Ackroyd, Thames: The Biography. Doubleday, 2007)

"It would be more illuminating to say that the metaphor creates the similarity than to say that it formulates some similarity antecedently existing." (Max Black, Models and Metaphors, 1962)

"Metaphor is a device for seeing something in terms of something else. It brings out the thisness of a that, or the thatness of a this." (Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives, 1945)

"Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, 'grace' metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, 'Why dont you say what you mean?' We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections--whether from diffidence or some other instinct.

"I have wanted in late years to go further and further in making metaphor the whole of thinking. I find some one now and then to agree with me that all thinking, except mathematical thinking, is metaphorical, or all thinking except scientific thinking. The mathematical might be difficult for me to bring in, but the scientific is easy enough." (Robert Frost, "Education by Poetry." Amherst Graduates' Quarterly, Feb. 1931)

"For we are all swimmers ephemerally buoyed by what will engulf us at the last; still dreaming of islands though the mainland has been lost; swept remorselessly out to sea while we spread our arms to the beautiful shore." (Peter De Vries, Peckham's Marbles, 1986)

A blanket of snow covered the streets. A colorful remark was not half bad either. A light in a sea of darkness. According to her, only shades of gray make up life. Authority is a chair, it needs legs to stand up. He has a heart of gold. He is my East and my West, my compass. He swam in the sea of diamonds. Her bubbly personality cheered him up. His deep dark secret was revealed to everyone. It is raining cats and dogs. Life has a tendency to come back and bite you. Life is a mere dream, a fleeting shadow on a cloudy day. Life is going through time. My memory is a little cloudy about that incident. She could not digest the news when she heard it. She is drowning in the sea of love. She is the apple of my eye. The noise is music to her ears. The stench of failure should not depress you. To give her a surprise visit is a brilliant idea! United States of America is a shining example of democracy. You had better pull your socks up. You light up my life with your presence.

M
Examples:

etonymy is a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it. Substitution of an associated word to suggest what is really meant. A noun is substituted for a noun in such a way that we substitute the cause of the thing of which we are speaking for the thing itself; this might be done in several ways: substituting the inventor for his invention, the container for the thing contained or vice versa, an author for his work, the sign for the thing signified, the cause for the effect or vice versa.

'He is a man of cloth', which means he belongs to a religious order. 'He writes with a fine hand', means he has a good handwriting. In Hamlet, one can find many references like the ghost of Hamlet's father referring to his murderer as 'the serpent that did sting thy father's life'. Another mention is where Polonius instructs his son Laertes to 'give every man thy ear' to say that he must listen to what other people have to say.

In Julius Caesar, when Mark Antony, after the death of Caesar, addresses the people 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears', he means that he wants the people to listen to what he has to say.

Romeo and Juliet, one of William Shakespeare's famous plays has a famous example of metonymy when Esculutus tells about the tragic death of Romeo and Juliet as 'For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo'.

'The House was called to order', refers to the members of the House. 'The pen is mightier than the sword' refers that the power of literary works is greater than military force.

The Sergeant in Macbeth, while talking about the king refers to Macbeth's sword as steel in 'Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, which smoked with bloody execution'.

'We have always remained loyal to the crown', that means the people are loyal to the king or the ruler of their country.

A committee or a board - members A country - members of the population or leaders

A faction - leaders or constitution members A hospital - doctors, nurses and other people working there A newspaper - journalists or editors An institution - members or leaders (like in the Army or Red Cross) Red letter day an important day. In calendars, important days and holidays are marked in red

Fear gives wings." (Romanian proverb)

"Detroit is still hard at work on an SUV that runs on rain forest trees and panda blood." (Conan O'Brien)

"I stopped at a bar and had a couple of double Scotches. They didn't do me any good. All they did was make me think of Silver Wig, and I never saw her again." (Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep)

The White House asked the television networks for air time on Monday night. "Whitehall prepares for a hung parliament." (The Guardian, January 1, 2009)

The suits on Wall Street walked off with most of our savings. "The B.L.T. left without paying." (waitress referring to a customer)

nomatopoeia is the use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. Word that imitates a real sound (e.g. tick-tock or boom). Words that sound like their meaning. Examples:

Cock-a-doodle-do, crowed the rooster. I heard the bees buzzing. The clock goes ticktock.

The cow says moo all day long. With the click of a mouse I can open another window on my computer. The duck quacked at the bird. Zip up your pants. The birds like to tweet outside my window. Don't belch so loud. I was so cold my teeth were chattering. Don't beep that horn again. Phew, that stinks. I love to sniff a good smelling flower The pig squealed. I love chrunchy potatoe chips. Drip, drip, drip, went the faucet all day long. Baa, baa whaled the sheep. Everyone in the room snapped their fingers to the music. Don't bump your head on the door. The fireworks at the parade made a loud boom! The birds were fluttering their wings. Yikes! I almost fell off my skateboard. Mom said, "don't plop on the sofa". I love to hear my cat purr. Poof! The magician made the rabbit disappear. The pipes rattled in the basement. I heard the tires schreech as he tried to put on brakes. The fire crackled as it kept us warm from the fireplace. The steaks sizzled on the grill. We heard the lion roar. Clap your hands a little louder. Don't bam on that table again.

If the dog barks again take him outside. The water bubbled up from the sink. Eek ! I saw a mouse. The symbals gave a clink and a clang as we marched with the band. Thump him on the head to get his attention. I heard the whizz of the ball as he hit a home run. My teacher told me to shoosh , because I was making too much noise. I heard a knock at the door. The murmur of his words were barely audible. Zing, went the violin strings. Did he slash the tires? Tsk,tsk,tsk, what a bad decision that was. The door creaked as the wind blew it shut. The owl hooted as it sat in the tree. Grandma loves to hear the pitter-patter of little feet around the house. I love to splash in the water. The rustle of the leaves reminds me March winds are here. Hum me an old favorite tune. My son swooshed the basketball into the net. Ding went the bell as it fell on the floor. Did your child flush the toilet? He let out a loud whoop at the graduation ceremony. Ugh, that cough syrup tastes nasty. And phew, it smells bad too. Huh? Could you speak up . She loved to jangle her bracelets. When I click my tongue, it makes a clucking sound. The birds in the tree went cheep, cheep, cheep until they were fed. "Bah, hum bug", the old miser would say.

The medicine desolved as it fizzed in the glass. Ouch! You steped on my toe. The twang of the banjo string hurt my ears. I don't like it when a dog growls at me. Ahem. Could we have your attention please? Please whisper while you are in the library. The baby gurgled his milk. You scared me when you shouted, "boo" He whipped out his stick. My dog says woof four times when he wants to play ball That dog barks too loud. Michelle likes to slurp her drinks. The snort of the hog was aweful. He can neigh just like a horse. He mumbled his words Ow! That hurt. Shuffle the cards again. My dog likes to squelch bugs. As she sat in the chair, kerplunk it broke. My dog says woof four times when he wants to play ball That dog barks too loud. Michelle likes to slurp her drinks. The snort of the hog was aweful. He can neigh just like a horse. He mumbled his words Ow! That hurt. Shuffle the cards again. My dog likes to squelch bugs. As she sat in the chair, kerplunk it broke.

Drink some water to help stop your hiccups. The champagne tickled her nose and made her giggle. The engine went vroom as he speeded down the raceway Everytime I took a step, the heel on my shoe went flip-flop. We take tap dance lessons. The paint splattered on his suit. I listened for the ribbit of the frog last night. She popped the balloon with a pin The snakes hissed as we walked by the cage. She moaned and cried for a long time. I like to gargle with my favorite mouthwash each morning. The water gushed out of the hole. I'm tired of her yapping at us all day. Gobble, gobble, said the turkey. The ding dong of the doorbell is not loud enough. We heard the tlot-tlot of the horses hoofs. I squashed the banana. The wolf howled at the moon. My favorite advertising jingle is "Snap, Crackle, Pop, Rice Krispies". Achoo! God bless you. "Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-dong. The little train rumbled over the tracks." ("Watty Piper" [Arnold Munk], The Little Engine That Could)

"Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng! An alarm clock clanged in the dark and silent room." (Richard Wright, Native Son, 1940)

"I'm getting married in the morning! Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime." (Lerner and Loewe, "Get Me to the Church on Time," My Fair Lady)

"Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is." (slogan of Alka Seltzer, U.S.)

"Plink, plink, fizz, fizz" (Alka Seltzer, U.K.)

"'Woop! Woop! That's the sound of da police,' KRS-One famously chants on the hook of 'Sound of da Police' from 1993's Return of the Boombap. The unmistakable sound he makes in place of the police siren is an example ofonomatopoeia, the trope that works by exchanging the thing itself for a linguistic representation of the sound it makes." (Adam Bradley, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop. BasicCivitas, 2009)

"Onomatopoeia every time I see ya My senses tell me hubba And I just can't disagree. I get a feeling in my heart that I can't describe. . . .

It's sort of whack, whir, wheeze, whine Sputter, splat, squirt, scrape Clink, clank, clunk, clatter Crash, bang, beep, buzz Ring, rip, roar, retch Twang, toot, tinkle, thud Pop, plop, plunk, pow Snort, snuck, sniff, smack Screech, splash, squish, squeak Jingle, rattle, squeal, boing Honk, hoot, hack, belch." (Todd Rundgren, "Onomatopoeia")

"Klunk! Klick! Every trip" (U.K. promotion for seat belts)

"[Aredelia] found Starling in the warm laundry room, dozing against the slow rumprumpof a washing machine." (Thomas Harris, Silence of the Lambs)

Jemimah: It's called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Truly Scrumptious: That's a curious name for a motorcar. Jemimah: But that's the sound it makes. Listen. It's saying chitty chitty, chitty chitty, chitty chitty, chitty chitty, chitty chitty, bang bang! chitty chitty . . .. (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968)

"I have a new book, 'Batman: Cacophony.' Batman faces off against a character calledOnomatopoeia. His shtick is that he doesn't speak; he just mimics the noises you can print in comic books." (Kevin Smith, Newsweek, Oct. 27, 2008)

"Bang! went the pistol, Crash! went the window Ouch! went the son of a gun. Onomatopoeia-I don't want to see ya Speaking in a foreign tongue." (John Prine, "Onomatopoeia")

"A sound theory underlies the onomaht--that we read not only with our eyes but also with our ears. The smallest child, learning to read by reading about bees, needs no translation for buzz. Subconsciously we hear the words on a printed page.

"Like every other device of the writing art, onomatopoeia can be overdone, but it is effective in creating mood or pace. If we skip through the alphabet we find plenty of words to slow the pace: balk, crawl, dawdle, meander, trudge and so on.

"The writer who wants to write 'fast' has many choices. Her hero can bolt, dash, hurry orhustle." (James Kilpatrick, "Listening to What We Write." The Columbus Dispatch, Aug. 1, 2007) "He saw nothing and heard nothing but he could feel his heart pounding and then he heard the clack on stone and the leaping, dropping clicks of a small rock falling." (Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls) "It went zip when it moved and bop when it stopped, And whirr when it stood still. I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will." (Tom Paxton, "The Marvelous Toy") "I like the word geezer, a descriptive sound, almost onomatopoeia, and also coot, codger, biddy, battleaxe, and most of the other words for old farts." (Garrison Keillor)

xymoron is the combination of two mutually contradictory words in a case where the contradiction is apparent only, the two ideas being realized. A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side. Using two terms together, that normally contradict each other. Examples: Accurate estimate Act naturally All alone Appear invisible Awfully nice Bad luck Big baby Born dead Brief speech

Clearly confused Clearly misunderstood Climb down Common difference Confirmed rumor Constant change Controlled chaos Current history Deliberate mistake Exact estimate Exact opposite Expressive silence Falsely true Farewell reception Found missing Fully empty Genuine imitation Genuinely fake Growing small Known secret Least favorite Liquid gas Little giant Mercy killing Modern history Objective opinion Plastic glasses Practical Joke Preliminary conclusion

Random pattern Science fiction Small crowd Speed limit Suicide victim Terribly good Timeless moment True story Typically unusual Undesirable attraction Unsung hero Virtual reality "Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history." - George Bernard Shaw.

"I can resist anything, except temptation." - Oscar Wilde. "Simplicity is not a simple thing." - Charles Chaplin. "Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use." Wendell Johnson.

"The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep." - W.C. Fields. "Always be sincere, even when you don't mean it." - Irene Peter. "If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive." - Samuel Goldwyn. "The building was pretty ugly and a little big for its surroundings." - Steinbeck. "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." - Mark Twain. "To lead the people, walk behind them." - Lao-Tzu.

His novel created a mild sensation in literary circles. A sensation is usually defined as an intense feeling. Something that is mild is lukewarm.

The lady is 90 years young. 90 years is considered to be old, so it is oxymoronic to put 'young' after years.

A woman killed with kindness. Killing somebody is murder and is seen as an unkind act.

The silence was deafening. Something that is deafening is usually thought of to be a loud noise, but silence is completely quiet.

He was clearly misunderstood. To be misunderstood means that people felt that what you said was unclear or was confusing.

We were fishing and caught some jumbo shrimp. Shrimp are small creatures and the word 'shrimp' is also used as an adjective for something that is small. Something that is jumbo is big.

Bob took a working vacation. A vacation is a resting period where you can get away from work.

Rough embrace An embrace is caring and gentle opposed to being rough. Friendly fire A term usually used when a soldier is killed by a fellow soldier. Shooting at people is unfriendly, yet there is friendly fire.

Non-violent restraint Restraint is often times violent since you are witholding somebody from doing what they want to do.

Cold heat How can heat, that is hot, be cold? Icy fire Something that is 'icy' is cold, whereas 'fire' is hot. Feather of lead A feather is light in terms of weight, whereas lead is heavy. Don't be a Moving Statue . This is a term often used in Baseball. Statues are incapable of moving body parts. To be moving is to be in action. Thus the irony.

"Hells Angels" Hell Is In The Bottom Of The World And Angels Live In Heaven.

ersonification is a figure of speech that gives human qualities to an object, an animal or an idea. It enables the reader to see ordinary things in a new and interesting way. A type of metaphor in which distinctive human characteristics, e.g., honesty, emotion, volition, etc., are attributed to an animal, object or idea, as "The haughty lion surveyed his realm" or "My car was happy to be washed" or "'Fate frowned on his endeavors." Personification is commonly used in allegory. A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities. Examples: "Oreo: Milks favorite cookie." (slogan on a package of Oreo cookies) The wind stood up and gave a shout. He whistled on his fingers and

Kicked the withered leaves about And thumped the branches with his hand

And said he'd kill and kill and kill, And so he will! And so he will! (James Stephens, "The Wind") "Only the champion daisy trees were serene. After all, they were part of a rain forest already two thousand years old and scheduled for eternity, so they ignored the men and continued to rock the diamondbacks that slept in their arms. It took the river to persuade them that indeed the world was altered." (Toni Morrison, Tar Baby, 1981) "The road isn't built that can make it breathe hard!" (slogan for Chevrolet automobiles) "Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing gloves." (P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves, 1930) "Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. There was no one there." (proverb quoted by Christopher Moltisanti, The Sopranos)

"The operation is over. On the table, the knife lies spent, on its side, the bloody meal smear-dried upon its flanks. The knife rests.

At precisely 6:30 am my alarm clock sprang to life. Darkness shouted from a distance. He did not realize that his last chance was walking out the door. Her life passed her by. I could hear Hawaii calling my name. I tripped because the curb jumped out in front of me. My computer throws a fit every time I try to use it. My life came screeching to a halt. She did not realize that opportunity was knocking at her door. The avalanche devoured everything in its path. The baseball screamed all the way into the outfield. The bees played hide and seek with the flowers as they buzzed from one to another. The blizzard swallowed the town. The butterflies in the meadow seemed to two-step with one another. The car was suffering and was in need of some TLC. The car, painted lime green, raced by screaming for attention. The door protested as it opened slowly. The evil tree was lurking in the shadows. The fire ran wild. The first rays of morning tiptoed through the meadow. The flowers waltzed in the gentle breeze. The funeral raced by me in a blur. The moon winked at me through the clouds above. The news took me by surprise. The ocean danced in the moonlight. The ocean waves lashed out at the boat and the storm continued to brew.

The phone awakened with a mighty ring. The pistol glared at me from its holster. The popcorn leapt out of the bowl. The river swallowed the earth as the water continued to rise higher and higher. The run down house appeared depressed. The snow swaddled the earth like a mother would her infant child. The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky. The storm attacked the town with great rage. The sun glared down at me from the sky. The thunder clapped angrily in the distance. The thunder grumbled like an old man. The tornado ran through town without a care. The tree branch moaned as I swung from it. The tsunami raced towards the coastline. The waffle jumped up out of the toaster. The wind howled its mighty objection. The wind sang through the meadow. The window panes were talking as the wind blew through them. The words leapt off of the paper as she read the story. Time creeps up on you. Time flew and before we knew it, it was time for me to go home. Time marches to the beat of its own drum. When the DVD went on sale, it flew off the shelves. While making my way to my car, it smiled at me mischievously.

un is a play of words of nearly the same sound but of different meanings. A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words. When a word or phrase is used in two different senses. Play on words that will have two meanings. Examples: A vulture boards a plane, carrying two dead possums. The attendant looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger." Kings worry about a receding heir line. I would like to go to Holland someday. Wooden shoe? "There was a man who entered a pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did." (Brian Becker et al., A Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Joke Book, 3rd ed. HighBridge, 2003) "When it rains, it pours." (slogan of Morton Salt since 1911) "When it pours, it reigns." (slogan of Michelin tires) "What food these morsels be!" (slogan of Heinz pickles, 1938) "American Home has an edifice complex." (slogan of American Home magazine) "Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight" (Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night") "Look deep into our ryes." (slogan of Wigler's Bakery) "Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted." (Fred Allen) "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." (Groucho Marx)

imile is a stated comparison between two things that are actually unlike but have something in common. A simile is easy to recognize because it is introduced by the words like, as, resemble, or similar to. Examples: "Good coffee is like friendship: rich and warm and strong." (slogan of Pan-American Coffee Bureau) "Life is rather like a tin of sardines: we're all of us looking for the key." (Alan Bennett) "When Lee Mellon finished the apple he smacked his lips together like a pair of cymbals." (Richard Brautigan, A Confederate General From Big Sur, 1964) "He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow." (George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859) "Human speech is like a cracked cauldron on which we bang out tunes that make bears dance, when we want to move the stars to pity." (Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 1856) "Humanity, let us say, is like people packed in an automobile which is traveling downhill without lights at terrific speed and driven by a four-year-old child. The signposts along the way are all marked 'Progress.'" (Lord Dunsany) "Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep." (Carl Sandburg) Shrek: Ogres are like onions. Donkey: They stink? Shrek: Yes. No! Donkey: They make you cry? Shrek: No! Donkey: You leave them out in the sun, they get all brown, start sprouting little

white hairs. Shrek: No! Layers! Onions have layers! (Shrek, 2001) "The interior of the Earth is rather like an onion, made up of a series of concentric shells or layers." (Martin Redfern, The Earth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford Univ. Press, 2003) "My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain." (W.H. Auden) "[H]e looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food." (Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940) "The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men." (Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, 1939) "Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming." (John Updike, "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," 1960) "It is all, God help us, a matter of rocks. The rocks shape life like hands around swelling dough." (Annie Dillard, "Life on the Rocks: The Galpagos") "you fit into me like a hook into an eye

a fish hook an open eye" (Margaret Atwood) " . . . Here comes The white-haired thistle seed stumbling past through the branches Like a paper lantern carried by a blind man." (W.S. Merwin, "Sire." The Second Four Books of Poems. Copper Canyon Press, 1993)

"She dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat." (James Joyce, "The Boarding House")

"She has a voice like a baritone sax issuing from an oil drum, and hams even with her silences." (John Simon, reviewing Kathleen Turner in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, April 2005)

"He's got a face like a wet Sunday in a debtors' prison." (Joe Bennett, Mustn't Grumble. Simon & Schuster, 2006)

"A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard." (George Orwell, "A Hanging," 1931)

"If you are interested in becoming a TV journalist, it is a fine example of how not to do it. I look like an exploding tomato and shout like a jet engine and every time I see it [the video] makes me cringe." (John Sweeney, "Row Over Scientology Video." BBC News, May 14, 2007)

"My memory is proglottidean, like the tapeworm, but unlike the tapeworm it has no head, it wanders in a maze, and any point may be the beginning or the end of its journey." (Umberto Eco, "The Gorge")

"Matt Leinart slid into the draft like a bald tire on black ice." (Rob Oller, Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 25, 2007)

As agile as a monkey As alike as two peas in a pod As bald as a coot As beautiful as nature As big as a bus As big as an elephant As black as a sweep As black as coal As black as pitch

As blind as a bat As blind as a mole As bold as brass As brave as a lion As bright as a button As bright as a new pin As bright as day As bright as the sun As brown as a berry As busy as a beaver As busy as a bee As calm as a millpond As clean as a whistle As clear as a bell As clear as crystal As clear as mud Laughs like a hyena Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep They fought like cats and dogs. As cold as ice As common as dirt As cool as a cucumber As crazy as a loon As cunning as a fox As cute as a baby As cute as a cup cake As damp as the sponge As dead as a doornail As dead as the dodo

As deaf as a post As delicate as a flower As dense as a brick As different as chalk from cheese As drunk as a lord As dry as a bone As dry as dust As dull as dishwater As easy as ABC As easy as pie As fast as a race car As fat as a hippo As fat as a pig As fit as a fiddle As flat as a pancake As free as a bird As fresh as a daisy As funny as a balloon As gentle as a lamb As good as gold As hairy as an ape As happy as a clown As happy as a lark As happy as a rat with a gold tooth As hard as nails As hard as rock As high as a kite As hoarse as a crow As hot as a fire cracker

As hot as hell As hungry as a bear As hungry as a wolf As innocent as a lamb As keen as mustard As large as life As light as a feather As light as air As likely as not As loud as a lion As lowly as a worm As mad as a hatter As mad as the march hare As merry as a cricket As modest as a maiden As much use as a yard of pump water As naked as a baby As neat as a pin As nutty as a fruitcake As obstinate as a mule As old as dirt As old as the hills As pale as a ghost As pale as death As patient as Job As plain as day As pleased as Punch As poor as a church mouse As poor as dirt

As pretty as a picture As proud as a peacock As pure as snow As pure as the driven snow As quick as a wink As quick as lightning As quick as silver As quiet as a mouse As rich as gold As right as rain As round as a barrel As round as a circle As round as a sphere As safe as houses As sensitive as a flower As sharp as a needle As sick as a dog As silent as the dead As silent as the grave As silly as a goose As sleepy as a koala As slippery as an eel As slow as a snail As slow as a tortoise As slow as a turtle As sly as a fox As smart as an owl As smooth as silk As sober as a judge

As solid as a rock As solid as the ground we stand on As sound as a bell As sour as vinegar As steady as a rock As sticky as jam As stiff as a board As still as death As straight as an arrow As strong as an ox As stubborn as a mule As sturdy as an oak As sure as death and taxes As sweet as honey As tall as a giraffe As thick as a brick As thin as a toothpick As tight as a drum As timid as a rabbit As tiny as a grain of sand As tough as leather As tough as nails As tricky as a box of monkeys As welcome as a dog in a game of skittles. As white as a ghost As white as a sheet As white as snow As wise as an owl As wise as Solomon

Chatters like a monkey Fits like a glove Harvey's grin was as coiled as a rattler His skin was as cold as ice. I wanted our songs to fly out to the audience. but, somehow they dropped like a lead beach ball

Moves like a snail My love is like a red, red rose Runs like a deer she got a neck like a pipe Sits there like a bump on a log The snow was like a blanket The world is like a stage To drink like a fish To eat like a bird To eat like a horse To smoke like a chimney To soar like an eagle To work like a dog Watching the show was like watching paint dry A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle - Irina Dunn As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean - Samuel Taylor Coleridge Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh - Wilfred Owen Death has many times invited me: it was like the salt invisible in the waves - Pablo Neruda

Guiltless forever, like a tree - Robert Browning Happy as pigs in mud - David Eddings His explanation was as clear as mud. How like the winter hath my absence been - William Shakespeare

Jubilant as a flag unfurled - Dorothy Parker So are you to my thoughts as food to life - William Shakespeare The film was about as interesting as watching a copy of Windows download. Watching the show was like watching paint dry. Yellow butterflies flickered along the shade like flecks of sun - William Faulkner

ynecdoche is a type of metonymy in which a significant part is used to represent the whole. A

figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (for example, ABCs for alphabet) or the whole for a part ("England won the World Cup in 1966"). Form of metonymy, in which a part stands for the whole. It serves as a substitution of part for whole, genus for species, or vice versa. Examples: "And let us mind, faint heart n'er wan A lady fair." (Robert Burns, "To Dr. Blalock") "barrel" for a barrel of oil "glasses" for spectacles "irons" for shackles placed around a prisoner's wrists or ankles to restrict their movement "keg" for a keg of beer "lead" for bullets (e.g. They pumped him full of lead.) "plastic" for a credit card (asking a merchant) Do you take plastic? "rubber" for a condom "silver" for flatware or other dishes that were once made of silver metal "steel" for a sword "Take thy face hence." (William Shakespeare, Macbeth)

"The sputtering economy could make the difference if you're trying to get a deal on a new set of wheels." (Al Vaughters, WIVB.com, Nov. 21, 2008)

"threads" for clothing Yo, check out my new threads! "tin" for a container made with tin plating "willow" for a cricket bat or "pigskin" for an American or Canadian football "wood" for a type of club used in the sport of golf 9/11 All hands on deck. General Motors announced cutbacks. A vulture boards a plane, carrying two dead possums. The attendant looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

Kings worry about a receding heir line. I would like to go to Holland someday. Wooden shoe? "There was a man who entered a pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did." (Brian Becker et al., A Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Joke Book, 3rd ed. HighBridge, 2003)

"When it rains, it pours." (slogan of Morton Salt since 1911)

"When it pours, it reigns." (slogan of Michelin tires)

"What food these morsels be!" (slogan of Heinz pickles, 1938)

"American Home has an edifice complex." (slogan of American Home magazine)

"Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight" (Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night")

"Look deep into our ryes." (slogan of Wigler's Bakery)

"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted." (Fred Allen)

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." (Groucho Marx)

"At midnight I went on deck, and to my mate's great surprise put the ship round on the other tack. His terrible whiskers flitted round me in silent criticism." (Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer)

"In photographic and filmic media a close-up is a simple synecdoche--a part representing the whole. . . . Synecdoche invites or expects the viewer to 'fill in the gaps' and advertisements frequently employ this trope." (Daniel Chandler, Semiotics: The Basics. Routledge, 2002)

It is often difficult to distinguish between metonymy and synecdoche. Plastic = credit card is a case of synecdoche because credit cards are made from plastic, but it is also metonymic because we use plastic to refer to the whole system of paying by means of a prearranged credit facility, not just the cards themselves. In fact, many scholars do not use synecdoche as a category or term at all." (Murray Knowles and Rosamund Moon, Introducing Metaphor. Routledge, 2006)

nderstatement is a figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is. Examples: "The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace."

(Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress")

"I am just going outside and may be some time." (Captain Lawrence Oates, Antarctic explorer, before walking out into a blizzard to face certain death, 1912)

"A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty." (Mark Twain)

Vance: My, we are certainly in a good mood this morning. Pee-wee: That, my dear Vance, is the understatement of the year. Everything seems completely different to me today. The air smells so fresh. The sky seems a brand-new shade of blue. I don't think I've ever noticed the beauty of this leaf. And Vance, have you always been so handsome? (Wayne White and Paul Reubens in Big Top Pee-wee, 1988)

"This [double helix] structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest." (J. Watson and F. Crick)

"I have to have this operation. It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain." (Holden Caulfield in The Catcher In The Rye, by J. D. Salinger)