updated 04 March 2005
RHETORICAL TERMS WITH EXAMPLES: 2005
beginning A-G  (Go here for terms beginning H-Z.)
(updated 04 March 2005)

  indicates a particularly apt example.  A strike-through (---) indicates an inappropriate, incorrect, or (most often) potentially confusing use of a term (don't take it personally).   The rest are okay: somewhere between "particularly apt" and "potentially confusing."  My comments appear in italics.

With examples provided by students enrolled in ENGL 5730 in Spring 2005 and submitted--in phase one--by the evening of Feb. 9 and--in phase two--by Feb. 16th. 

Here is the original assignment:  "At our CLASS PRODUCTIONS page, go to "77 Rhetorical Terms with Examples" (contributed by the rhetoric class of 2003) and "66 Rhetorical Terms with Examples" (contributed by the rhetoric class of 2002), and "Examples of Rhetorical Terms" (contributed by the rhetoric class of 2000): read the examples and try to define the rhetorical terms they illustrate (then check your answers by clicking on the terms).    Next, send me an e-mail with five different examples you have found (or created) of any five different terms (from our list of terms) beginning A through G (we'll cover the rest of the alphabet next week).  Be sure to cite the author and title of any poem, song lyric, essay, story, gum wrapper, movie script, t-shirt, road sign, or novel you quote from.  Obviously, I expect you to provide a fresh example, not one that's already been submitted.  And your great challenge is to find examples of some of the less obvious (and perhaps more difficult to remember) terms.  If you submit sorry examples of terms (such as alliteration and fable) that we have known all of our lives, I will deduct points and ridicule you mercilessly on this web site.  On the other hand, if you submit particularly imaginative examples of more challenging terms, I will heap extra points upon you and honor your name."

How to use this page: After studying the example(s) accompanying each rhetorical term below, try to compose a clear and accurate definition of the term.  Better yet, write down your definition.  Then click on the term to compare your definition with the one in our online glossary.

WARNING: Although most of the terms below are illustrated appropriately, some are mistakenly identified, some others are unclearly identified (especially in longer passages, where it may not be obvious which part of the passage illustrates the term), and still others are incompletely identified.   Soon we'll be making some clarifications and corrections to the terms and examples on this page.  Don't feel hurt if your contributions are corrected or qualified in any way: the main purpose of this exercise is to help deepen and clarify your understanding of the terms.

For the most part, your contributions have been copied and pasted into the web page without any alterations.  If you spot any errors in the quotations that you sent me, please notify me via e-mail.  In many cases, original formatting has been lost, and so the layout has gotten a little messy (a major problem with texts that were not submitted as Word attachments).  Sorry!  If texts arrived without names, contributors are identified by e-mail addresses.   

Contributors for Terms A-G
Dee Dee Coursey
Tanja Soupon
Pamela Melton
Rob Thomas
Arthur Tanney
inchoate9@aol.com
Chris Shirley

Katie Sanders
Heather Glover
Kelley Sanders
Ariana Siennick
Oakley Julian
Christi Healan

Kirsten Mullis
Chris McCormick
Patrice Beavers
Alicia Ferrell
Shelly Rhodes
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TERMS A-G

Dee Dee Coursey

1.   attic:  

"Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity." -Christopher Morley

 2.    auxesis:

“It might be, it could be…it is! A home run!”  - Harry Caray calling a Cubs game

 3.    Entire excerpt is an example of commoratio.  It is also an example of dehortatio(?).   Included within it are examples of apophasis and apposition in the first paragraph:

“Success is somebody else's failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty. No, I do not wish you success. I don't even want to talk about it. I want to talk about failure.” 

“Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you're weak where you thought yourself strong. You'll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself - as I know you already have - in dark places, alone, and afraid.”
-Excerpt from a Commencement Address given at Mills College Graduation - 1983 by Ursula K. Le Guin, Author

 4.    Entire excerpt is an example of apostrophe.  There is an example of catachresis within the first paragraph (?).  There are also several examples of anaphora within the both paragraphs:

“Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this far playing political games. It was those that earned our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats.”

“Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham.”

“This vote is sacred to us.”

“This vote can't be bargained away.”

“This vote can't be given away.”

“Mr. President, in all due respect, Mr. President, read my lips: Our vote is not for sale.”
-Excerpt from Reverend Al Sharpton’s Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention - delivered 28 July 2004, Fleet Center, Boston 

5.    Excerpt contains an example of epiplexis and aposiopesis, as well as (?) antirrhesis and bdelygmia?: 

“You, you said that they -- What'd you say just a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even thought of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what?! Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken-down that -- Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you'll ever be.”
- from "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946)  George Bailey: Address to the Board of Directors -- Bailey Building and Loan Society.

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Tanja Soupon

6)  Bdelygmia

I do hate a proud man, as I do hate the
engend'ring of toads.
—Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida 2.3.158-159

7)  Diacope AND EPIZEUXIS (use this example to distinguish the two terms)

As Shakespeare's Tempest opens a terrible storm frightens those aboard a ship, of which one proclaims
"All lost! To prayers, to prayers! All lost!" 

8) catachresis

As one said that disliked a picture with a crooked nose, "The elbow of his nose is disproportionable" —J. Smith 

9) effectio

I mean that man, he with the white hair, the crazed look in his eye, the huge scar across his chin, the lame left leg, and feet too large for any shoes...  

10) ellipsis

"The average person thinks he isn't." –Father Larry Lorenzoni
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28.  Diacope:  (see italics)

Although I'm still a Muslim, I'm not here tonight to discuss my 
religion. I'm not here to try and change your religion. I'm not here 
to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it's time 
for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us 
to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a 
problem that will make you catch hell whether you're a Baptist, or a 
Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you're educated or 
illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you're 
going to catch hell just like I am. We're all in the same boat and we 
all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just 
happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this 
country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic 
exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at 
the hands of the white man.
         -- Malcolm X “The Ballot or the Bullet” 

29.  Anthisis: 

"For where thou art, there is the world itself, and where though art 

not, desolation"

             -- Shakespeare, Henry VI, Act iii, Sc.2 

30.  Asyndeton: 
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.  -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address 

31.  Anadiplosis: 

"What is best, that best I wish in thee"   Shakespeare, Troilus & C, Act ii, Sc.2 

32.  Epizeuxis 
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.           -- Winston Churchill
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Chris Shirley

33) Antithesis-Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases. 
The door is locked now, but it's open if you're true-Metallica, “The Unforgiven II”