Rhetorical Devices Review Oxymoron I hear that the

Rhetorical Devices Review

Oxymoron I hear that the new restaurant has some really good jumbo shrimp.

Parenthesis It is now necessary to warn you that your concern for the reader must be pure: you must sympathize with the reader’s plight (most readers are in trouble about half the time) but never seek to know the reader’s wants.

Metaphor Spending too much time with him is worse than swimming with sharks.

Distinctio Now when you say 'rough', do you mean difficult or do you mean harsh, because both make sense, although I would have thought the latter most appropriate.

Parallelism Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Anaphora I remember a piece of old wood with termites running around all over it the termite men found under our front porch. I remember when one year in Tulsa by some freak of nature we were invaded by millions of grasshoppers for about three or four days. I remember, downtown, whole sidewalk areas of solid grasshoppers. I remember a shoe store with a big brown x-ray machine that showed up the bones in your feet bright green.

Apostrophe 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.

Symploce Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak: That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange? That Angelo's a murderer; is't not strange? That Angelo is an adulterous thief, An hypocrite, a virgin-violator; Is it not strange and strange?

Epanalepsis Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!

Hypophora What made me take this trip to Africa? There is no quick explanation. Things got worse and pretty soon they were too complicated.

Rhetorical Question Is the Pope Catholic?

Procatalepsis Someone will say: ‘Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? ’ Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this … and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living – that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you.

Pleonasm I’m eating a tuna fish sandwich.

Metabasis Now that we have discussed the different kinds of cactus plants available to the landscape architect, their physical requirements for sun, soil, irrigation, and drainage, and the typical design groupings selected for residential areas, we ought to examine the architectural contexts which can best use-enhance and be enhanced by--cactus planters and gardens.

Litotes Are you hungry? Well, I’m not starving.

Scesis Onomaton Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.

Parataxis The steer was down now, his neck stretched out, his head twisted, he lay the way he had fallen.

Apophasis "At a White House press conference, a reporter working for a journal published by Extremist Lyndon La. Rouche asked the President about rumors that Michael Dukakis once sought psychological help. 'Look, ' [President] Reagan replied with a smile, 'I'm not going to pick on an invalid. '"

Aporia But is there not a pleasure, ” said Candide “ in criticizing everything, in pointing out faults where others see nothing but beauties? ” “That is to say, ” replied Martin, “that there is some pleasure in having no pleasure.

Simile This contract is as solid as the ground we stand on.

Polysyndeton Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly–let them have their whiteness.

Catachresis The student’s mind was like a steel sieve.

Synecdoche If we’re going to win this war we need more boots on the ground.

Metonymy My dear, you have all of my heart.

Personification One look at the garden and you could tell that the plants were begging for water.

Hyperbole It was so cold, I saw polar bears wearing hats and jackets.

Asyndeton I came, I saw, I conquered. (Veni, vidi, vici. )

Sententia My father always told me that the wise man works smarter, not harder, which is why I think I need a break.

Allusion When she lost her job, she acted like a Scrooge, and refused to buy anything that wasn't necessary.

Epistrophe that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Zeugma All over Ireland the farmers grew potatoes, barley, and bored.

Sentential Adverb She looked hopefully at the box of chocolates.

Onomatopoeia If you see him, toot your horn.

Understatement And you, who have told me a hundred times how deeply you pitied me for the sorceries by which I was bound, will doubtless hear with joy that they are now ended forever. There was, it seems, some small error in your Ladyship’s way of treating them.

Analogy Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.

Alliteration His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Enthymeme Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.

Diacope We'll get our big break any day now, darling, any day now.

Antiphrasis Thanks for spraying me with water when I just spent an hour doing my hair. You are such a funny guy.

Enumeratio Brian was an amazing man. And I say that not just because he was family. Many people thought he was almost super human. After his death, we visited his former duty stations in Arizona. Each time we met one of his fellow agents, they spoke of how impressed they were with him. He was what we expect in our brothers and sons: a strong, competitive, handsome, courageous, funny, and incredibly patriotic American.

Appositive The Eiffel Tower, Gustave Eiffel’s masterpiece, can be found on the Champs de Mars.

Hypotaxis Mrs. Taylor is my English teacher who lets us write about fairy tales and reads to us from fascinating books