CONNOTATIONS AND CHIASMUS TOO MANY WORDS NOT ENOUGH

CONNOTATIONS AND CHIASMUS TOO MANY WORDS NOT ENOUGH CLIP-ART

CONNOTATION • Connotation refers to a meaning that is implied by a word APART from the thing which it describes explicitly. Words carry cultural and emotional associations or meanings in addition to their literal meanings. • For instance, “Wall Street” literally means a street situated in Lower Manhattan but connotatively it refers to “wealth” and “power”.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS • Words may have POSITIVE or NEGATIVE connotations that depend upon the social, cultural and personal experiences of individuals. • For example, the words childish, childlike and youthful have similar LITERAL meanings but have different CONNOTATIONS. Childish and childlike have a negative connotation as they refer to immature behavior of a person. Whereas, youthful implies that a person is lively and energetic.

CHIASMUS • A rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form

CHIASMUS • In peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons. —Croesus • Reader don’t need to write, but writers do need to read. • Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things • Laughing is the best medicine. But if you’re laughing for no reason, you need medicine.

CHIASMUS AND THE PRESIDENTS • It's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, it's the size of the fight in the dog. —Dwight D. Eisenhower • I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do; I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. —Ronald Reagan • Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. —John F. Kennedy, Jr. • And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. —John F. Kennedy, Jr.