updated 04 March 2005
RHETORICAL TERMS WITH EXAMPLES: 2005
beginning A-G
Contributors (listed in no logical order whatsoever):
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
_________________________________________________
TERMS A-G (continued)
Katie Sanders
38.
Anadiplosis-
“If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself!” (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez)
39. Epimone- “Are we
really going out with them tonight? I hate going out with them, why do we have to go?
Every time we go out with them, we have the worst time. Please, tell me again why we have
to spend time with people I really don’t like.” (Me, bitching at my husband)
40. Anaphora- “How
then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add
up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking?” (To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf)
41. Apposition or
Antonomasia-
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” (Lolita, Nabokov)
42. Apostrophe-
“You have now read about thirty pages and you’re becoming caught up in the
story.” (If on a winter’s night a
traveler, Calvino)
[Okay but context would help
to show how discourse has been broken off.]
___________________________________________________________________
Heather L. Glover
43. Bdelygmia
You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch.
You're a nasty, wasty skunk.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks;
Your soul is full of gunk,
Mr. Grinch.
The three words that best describe you,
are, and I quote: "Stink. Stank. Stunk."
--Dr. Seuss (a.k.a. Theodore Geisel),
“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”
44. Epiplexis
“Suppose you wake up some mornig and find your sister dead? What would you think then?” she asked. “Suppose those rats cut our veins at night
while we sleep? Naw! Noting like that ever bothers you! All you care about is your own pleasure!”
--Richard Wright, Native
Son
(NOTE: I saw in
the remaining selections examples of more than one rhetorical device from the A-G list, so
I listed two terms for each of them.)
45. Antirrhesis and
Epicrisis
“In his remarkable apology for lynching, Bishop Haygood, of
Georgia, says: ‘No race, not the most savage, tolerates the rape of woman, but it may
be said without reflection upon any other people that the Southern people are now and
always have been most sensitive concerning the honor of their women—their mothers,
wives, sisters and daughters.’ It is not
the purpose of this defense to say one word against the white women of the South. Such need not be said, but it is their misfortune
that the chivalrous white men of that section, in order to escape the deserved execration
of the civilized world, should shield themselves by their cowardly and infamously false
excuse, and call into question that very honor about which their distinguished priestly
apologist claims they are most sensitive. To
justify their own barbarism they assume a chivalry which they do not possess. True chivalry respects all womanhood, and no one
who reads the record, as it is written in the faces of the million mulattoes in the South,
will for a minute conceive that the southern white man had a very chivalrous regard for
the honor due the women of his own race or respect for the womanhood which circumstances
placed in his power. That chivalry which is
‘most sensitive concerning the honor of women’ can hope for but little respect
from the civilized world, when it confines itself entirely to the women who happen to be
white. Virtue knows no color line, and the
chivalry which depends upon complexion of skin and texture of hair can command no honest
respect.”--Ida B.
Wells-Barnett, A Red Record
46. Anaphora and Exergasia
“The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a
forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage
in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The
emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s
voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The
emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald
head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with
knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the
hard facts stored inside.” --Charles Dickens, Hard Times
47. Auxesis and Epimone
“That’s it. There
you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a
dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. Man say: I got to take hold of this here world,
baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and
go to work. Man say: I got to change my life,
I’m choking to death, baby! And his woman
say—Your eggs is getting cold!
--Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun,
I.i (One of Walter Lee’s lines)
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Kelley
Sanders
48)"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"-
Cliche example of a quote from the movie Cruel Intentions.
49)"Pretty is as Pretty does"- Antithesis example of a quote from my mom.
50)"I'm fat because I eat and I eat because I'm fat" -
Chiasmus example of a quote from Fat Bastard in the Austin Powers movie.
51) "Let us go forth to lead the land we love." Alliteration example from J. F. Kennedy inagural speech.
51) "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done."- Assonance example from the Lord's prayer.
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Ariana Siennick
52) Anaphora- italicized portion
“Now is the time for turning. The
leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange.
The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once
more toward the south. The animals are
beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter.
For leaves, birds, and animals, turning comes
instinctively. But for us, turning does
not come so easily. It takes an act of will
for us to make a turn. It means breaking
old habits. It means admitting
that we have been wring, and this is never easy. It
means losing face. It means starting all over
again. And this is always painful. It
means saying I am sorry. It means
recognizing that we have the ability to change.”
I Have Sinned Speech, President Bill Clinton, September 11, 1998.
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/Bill_Clinton/index.htm
53)
Apophasis-
“Our country puts $1 billion a year up to help feed the hungry. And we're by far the most generous nation in the
word when it comes to that, and
I'm proud to report that. This isn't a contest
of who's the most generous. I'm just telling
you as an aside. We're generous. We shouldn't be bragging about it. But we are. We're
very generous.”
President George W. Bush, Annadale, VA, August 9, 2004
http://slate.msn.com/id/76886/
54)
Aposiopesis-
“Secondly, the tactics of our -- as you know, we don't have relationships with
Iran. I mean that's -- ever since the late
70's, we have no contacts with them, and
we've totally sanctioned them. In other
words, there's no sanctions -- you can't -- we're out of sanctions.”
President George W. Bush, Washington
D.C., July 16, 2003
http://slate.msn.com/id/76886
55) Chreia-
“There was a time when Europe was that Greek Island into which Nordic tribes
had penetrated in order to light a torch for the first time which from then onwards began slowly,
but surely to brighten the world of man. When
these Greeks repulsed the invasion of the Persian conquerors
they did not only defend their homeland, which was Greece, but that idea which we
call Europe today. And then European concepts
travelled from
Hellas to Rome. The Greek spirit and culture,
the Roman way of thinking and statesmanship, joined. An
empire was created which, to this day has not
been equalled in its significance or creative power, let alone outdone. When, however the Roman legions were defending Rome
against the African onslaught of Carthage and
at last gained a victory, again it was not Rome they were fighting for, but the Europe of
that time, which
consisted of the Greek-Roman Empire.”
Declaration of War on the US, Adolf Hitler, December 11, 1941
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/Adolf_Hitler/index.htm
56) Epizeuxis-
Hush, Hush, Hush
Goes my Mother's sweet lips,
Sleep, Sleep, Sleep
As she rocks me on her hips,
Dream, Dream, Dream
My head is dizzy and light,
Hush, Hush, Hush
My Babe, she says, Goodnight.
Mother's Lullaby, Ariana Siennick, copyright 1999
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Oakley
Julian
Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen for what was
going on both politically and religiously in England during the latter part of the 16th
century. Through this tale, he shows his
support for both Queen Elizabeth I and Protestantism through his adventures of the Red
Cross Knight, named St. George after the patron saint of England.
Your soul is an apalling dump heap
overflowing
with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable
rubbish imaginable,
Mangled up in tangled up knots.
You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch.
With a nauseaus super-naus.
You're a crooked jerky jockey
And you drive a crooked horse.
Mr. Grinch.
You're a three decker saurkraut and toadstool
sandwich
With arsenic sauce.
(From Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch
Stole Christmas)
“Professor Trelawney moved into the
firelight, and they saw that she was very thin; her large glasses magnified her eyes to
several times their natural size, and she was draped in a gauzy spangled shawl. Innumerable chains and beads hung around her
spindly neck, and her arms and hands were encrusted with bangles and rings.” (From
J.K. Rowling’s book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
“Khan!” “Khan!”
“Khan!” (Admiral James T. Kirk – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
“She abandoned religion for
mesmerism, mesmerism for politics, and politics for the melodramatic excitements of
philanthrophy.”
(Speaker – Vivian From
Oscar Wilde’s The Decay of Lying)
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Christi Healan
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise.
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously
clear
I rise.
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors
gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the
slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
(From Still I Rise, by Maya
Angelou)
“Men have committed the
greatest crime against women. Insidiously, violently, they have led them to hate women, to
be their own enemies, to mobilize their immense strength against themselves, to be the
executants of their virile needs. The have made for women an anticarcissism! A narcissism
which loves itself only to be loved for what women haven’t got! They have constructed
the infamous logic of antilove.”
(From The Laugh of the
Medusa by Helene Cixous)
“The New England shopkeepers
and Theologians never developed a civilization; all they ever developed was a
government”
(From The Sahara of the Bozart by H.L. Mencken)
65) Anaphora
She starts to do things the way you did them.
She stacks dishes in order of
size.
She begins to like your favorite cheese.
She finds herself getting irritated
At the way her new lover makes a bed.
She misses smooth corners, no creases.
She scrubs the bath twice a day, and at night,
Sees the wrong lover mouthing her name.
(From Other Lovers by Jackie Kay)
99 Problems but a bitch ain't one
If you havin girl problems i feel bad for you son
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one
Hit me
[Verse Two]
The year is '94 and in my trunk is raw
In my rear view mirror is the moth*r f*ck*n law
I got two choices yall pull over the car or
Bounce on the devil put the pedal to the floor
Now I ain't tryin to see no highway chase with jake
Plus I got a few dollars i can fight the case
So I...pull over to the side of the road
And I heard "Son do you know why i'm stoppin you for?"
Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hats real low
Do I look like a mind reader sir, i don't know
Am I under arrest or should i guess some mo?
"Well you was doin fifty five in a fifty four"
"License and registration and step out of the car"
"Are you carrying a weapon on you I know a lot of you are"
I ain't steppin out of sh*t all my papers legit
"Do you mind if I look round the car a little bit?"
Well my glove compartment is locked so is the trunk and the back
And I know my rights so you gon' need a warrant for that
"Aren't you sharp as a tack? You some type of lawyer or something?"
"Or somebody important or something?"
Nah I ain't pass the bar but i know a little bit
Enough that you won't illegally search my sh*t
"We’ll see how smart you are when the K-9's come"
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one
Hit me
If your havin girl problems i
feel bad for you son
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one`
(From 99 Problems by Jay-Z)
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TERMS CONTINUE HERE.
TERMS BEGIN HERE.
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English 5730 is taught by Dr. Richard
Nordquist.
Armstrong Atlantic State University
updated 04 March 2005