updated 13 February 2006
RHETORICAL TERMS WITH EXAMPLES: 2006 [A-G group b]
(updated 13 February 2006)


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. 

Terms A-G: GROUP A
Stephanie Roberts
Lisa Hom
Macrae Carreker
Mary Culp
Tara Gergacs
Alex Barbee
Nicholas Stripling
Ashley Walden

Terms A-G: GROUP B
Alex Barbee (version 2)
Artisheia Brown
Nicki Peebles
Autumn Flynn
Tiffany Carabello

Terms A-G: GROUP C
Lindsey Estepp
Katharine Phipps
Kia Cooper
Stephanie Deal
Emilie Tuminella
Bisceglia Coleman
Leslie Moses

Terms H-Z: GROUP D
Katharine Phipps
Lisa Hom
Autumn Flynn
Stephanie Roberts
Ashley Walden
Artisheia Brown
Tiffany Lynn Carabello
Tara Gergacs

Terms H-Z: GROUP E
Leslie Moses
Mary Culp
Alex Barbee
Emilie Tuminella
Stephanie Deal
Macrae Carreker
Bisceglia Coleman
Lindsey Estepp
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Alex Barbee (version 2)

45.   Analogy: A personal favorite cause it is so true.

. . . For answers successfully arrived at are solutions to difficulties previously discussed, and one cannot untie a knot if he is ignorant of it. –Aristotle 

    “Life is like a box of Chocolates, you never know what your gonna get.” –Forrest Gump, from the movie “Forrest Gump” 1994 

    “Man, I feel like I’m on top of the world!” –Me (after finishing last semester) 

    “From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.” -Roy Ashley, Washington from Worst analogies ever written in a high school essay on the website,  http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/language/analogies.html 

    “Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.” -Chuck Smith, Woodbridge from Worst analogies ever written in a high school essay on the website,  http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/language/analogies.html  

46.   Anadiplosis:

    “I am Sam, Sam I am....” –Dr. Suess  

    “They call for you: The general who became a slave; the slave who became a gladiator; the gladiator who defied an Emperor. Striking story."  -Joaquin Phoenix (from the movie Gladiator)

   “Aboard my ship, excellent performance is standard. Standard performance is sub-standard.  Sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist. That, I warn you.”  - Humphrey Bogart (from the movie The Canine Mutiny)

  “But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then, when lust has conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” -James 1:14-15

  “"Somehow, with the benefit of little formal education, my grandparents recognized the inexorable downward spiral of conduct outside the guardrails: If you lie, you will cheat; if you cheat, you will steal; if you steal, you will kill." -USSC Justice Clarence Thomas (1993 Mercer Law School Address) 

47.   Catachresis:

     “We all live in a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine…” –The Beatles, Yellow Submarine 

    “I'm the producer of this show. If I didn't step up, you're nowhere. I put this thing together on a spit and polish." -Dustin Hoffman (from the movie Wag the Dog) 

   “Mr. Jensen feels we're too catastrophic in our thinking. I argued that television was a volatile industry in which success and failure were determined week by week. Mr. Jensen said he did not like volatile industries and suggested with a certain sinister silkiness that volatility in business usually reflected bad management." -Robert Duvall (from the movie Network) 

   “C'mon rook. Show us that million dollar arm 'cause I gotta, oh, I gotta good idea about that five cent head of yours.” -delivered by Kevin Costner (from the movie Bull Durham) 

   “There she stood on stage for all to see, showing off like the greedy songbird she was." -F. Murray Abraham (from the movie Amadeus)

48.   Cliché:

    “If something’s not broken, don’t fix it.” –Any mouse  

    “happy camper” –Any Mouse 

    “lick your chops” –Any Mouse 

    “throw the book at…” –Any Detective out there 

    “dull as dishwater” –Phillis Jackson (my Grandma)

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Artisheia Brown

49.  Categoria

-“George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” (Kanye West)

50.  Anaphora

My Childhood

                -Our drinks came with paper umbrellas.
                  My mother put on tennis whites.
                  My father went to the bar
                  the way he always did. 

My mother put on tennis whites.
      My brother threw me against a wall
      the way he always did.
      I believed in my guardian angel. 

My brother threw my mother against a wall.
      I walked in my sleep.
      I believed in my guardian angel.
      I woke up from the house. 

I walked in my sleep.
      My mother read fairy tales and sang to me.
      I woke up far from the house.
      My mother was old, my father dead.
 

My mother read fairy tales and sang to me. I woke up far from the house.
My father and brother crashed through the door.
My mother was old, my father dead
along with my guardian angel. 

My father and brother crashed through the door.
I went to the bare
along with my guardian angel
and our drinks came with paper umbrellas.
(Kim Addonizio, Tell Me)

51.  Epiphora

- The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and a**hole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!          |
  (Allen Ginsberg, “A Footnote to Howl)

52.  Effectio

Body’s Beauty

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flower; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair. (Dante Gabriel Rossetti,Collected Works, 216).

53.  Gradatio

1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and word was God. 2. He was with God in the beginning. (John 1:1-2)

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Nicki Peebles

54) Epideictic: 

-Gary Varvell

55) Chiasmus

“I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.”

-Arthur Rubinstein

56) Anadiplosis

“I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.”

-James Joyce

57) Accumulation

“Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most out of what you have.  It is later than you think.”

-Horace

58) Euphemism

-Mike Keefe
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Autumn Flynn 

59)  Apposition: Placing side-by-side two coordinate elements, the second of which serves as

an explanation or modification of the first. 

“I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles.  I laugh.”

(Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice)

60)  Antonomasia: Substitution of a title, epithet, or descriptive phrase for a proper name (or a personal name for a common name) to designate a member of a group or class. 

Jerry:    The guy who runs the place is a little temperamental, especially about the     ordering procedure. He's secretly referred to as the Soup Nazi.

Elaine: Why? What happens if you don't order right?

Jerry:     He yells and you don't get your soup.

(“Seinfeld”)

61)   Asyndeton: Omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses. 

Bubba: Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.

(Forrest Gump)

62)  Commoratio: Repetition of a point several times in different words. 

‘“He’s gone off his rocker!” shouted one of the fathers, aghast, and the other

parents joined in the chorus of frightened shouting.  “He’s crazy!” they shouted.

            “He’s balmy!”

            “He’s nutty!”

            “He’s screwy!”

            “He’s batty!”

            “He’s dippy!”

            “He’s dotty!”

            “He’s daffy!”

            “He’s goofy!”

            “He’s beany!”

            “He’s buggy!”

            “He’s wacky!”

            “He’s loony!”

            “No, he is not!” said Grandpa Joe.’

(Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

63)  Dialectic: “Socratic method” of one-on-one question and answer.  (Okay, this one’s a long shot, but I wanted to try something not many people have tried!)            

JERRY: I think Superman probably has a very good sense of humor.

GEORGE: I never heard him say anything really funny.

JERRY: But it's common sense. He's got super strength, super speed.  I'm sure he's got super humor.

GEORGE: You would think that, but either you're born with a sense of humor, or you're not. It's not going to change even if you go from the red sun of Krypton all the way to the yellow sun of the Earth.

JERRY: Why? Why would that one area of his mind not be affected by the yellow sun of Earth?

GEORGE: I don't know, but he ain't funny.

(“Seinfeld”)
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Tiffany Lynn Carabello

64)      antithesis

“There is laughter in the crying

There is life there in the tomb

There is living in the dying

There is healing in the wound”

                        -Gary Chapman

65)       alliteration

Alas, Alexander adds angst to anxiety…

66)       apostrophe

“Hello darkness my old friend…”

                        - Simon and Garfunkel

67)       assonance

The lighting flashes!

And slashing through the darkness,

A night-heron’s screech.

                        - Matsuo Basho

68)       cliché

“That’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
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Return to Group A
Continue to Group C
Proceed to H-Z Group D
Proceed to H-Z Group E

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English 5730 is taught by Dr. Richard Nordquist.
Armstrong Atlantic State University                    
updated 13 February 2006