14 Figures of Speech

EN9/NCSHS

Figure of speech is intentional departure from straight-forward, literal use of language for the purpose of
clarity, emphasis, or freshness of expression. In general or broadest sense, its purpose is to make expression
more effective, more striking and more beautiful. One special effect of it is developing thinking skill for it
indeliberately hides a true meaning presented in another form or figure.

While there are about 250 identified figures of speech, fourteen of them will be in focus in here. For better
recognition of their uses and differences, they will be grouped as figures by tropes and figures by schemes.

The figures by tropes are artful deviation from the ordinary or principal signification or meaning of a word.
The typical meaning of the word is presented in an unusual or “figured” way like comparing an insensitive
person to a rock as in metaphor or naming the people as a nation as in synecdoche.

The kinds of tropes are:

1. Reference to one thing as another like simile, metaphor, hyperbole
2. Wordplay and pun
3. Substitution
4. Understatement/overstatement
5. Semantic inversion or language re-presentation

The figures by schemes are artful deviation from the ordinary arrangement of words in such a way that the
positioning of the terms used tells something significant in an intended meaning to be exposed. For instance,
the repetition of the word “love” or the phrase “by all means” carries with it a meaning that the statement
offers.

The kinds of schemes are:

1. Structure of balance (the placement of ideas is balanced in a clause or sentence where a beginning
idea is balanced with an idea at the end)
2. Repetition
3. Omission

How are the FOURTEEN grouped?

FIGURES BY TROPES

1. (wordplay/pun) ONOMATOPOEIA – use of words to imitate natural sounds; accommodation of

sound to sense; words which suggest the sound of what they are describing
ex. The ducks were quacking and the bees were buzzing.
rip – cloth/paper tinkle – glass ring - telephone
twang – string moo – cow snake - hiss
snap – fingers splash – water crack – eggs, nuts
clink – chain slam – door clap - hands
neigh – horse puff – smoke honk – car

2. (wordplay/pun) CACOPHONY - harsh joining of sounds, creating a meaning out of the sounds of the
words (which imply something to that effect)
ex. We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work your wicked will – W. Churchill

The people can be fooled and have actually been fooled in the many polls that rudely ruled their
forgiving roles of their lives.

The disaster has wrecked havoc amidst the fears of the lowly who are in great danger in every
nook of their wrestled nest.

His misunderstood judgment had not been fair like good weather but seemed to wither like dried
leaves in the air.
3. (understatement/overstatement) LITOTES, laitotes as in tiger, - deliberate understatement or denial
of the contrary
. ex. He is no fool.
A few unannounced quizzes are not inconceivable.
War is not healthy for children and other living things.
Not a bad fighter
Not a few people came over.
I didn’t do so badly.
She wasn’t unprepared.
The nose ring did not make her appear more conventional.
The burglar didn't mind carrying the baseball bat around with him.
We lost no contest and we were not bored winning them all.

4. (substitution) ANTHIMERIA - the substitution of one part of speech for another; typically a noun
used as a verb -- also known as (and for example) "verbing a noun," using a different part of speech
to act as another, such as a verb for a noun, or a noun for a verb, or an adjective as a verb, etc.
ex. "Gift him with Sports Illustrated magazine for Christmas" (as opposed to give him).
"he sang his didn't, he danced his did." (e. e. cummings, those he coudn’t and those he
had sung)

“I am going in search of the great perhaps” (Rabelais, possibility)

Hey, my checker reached the other side; king me. (means to rule like a king or treat me
as king)

We were asked to computer the documents and FedEx them later. (for encode and mail)

The knight was unhorsed. (no horse, didn’t have horse)

5. (semantic inversion/language re-presentation) IRONY - expressing a meaning directly

contrary to that suggested by the words, expression of something which is contrary to the
intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another.
ex. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar).

He was no notorious malefactor, but he had been twice on the pillory, and once burnt
in the hand for trifling oversights.---Direccions for Speech and Style

Playboys hunt ugly girls in the malls. (actually beautiful ones)

We don’t take a ride when we are in a hurry. (actually we do)

The people are simply right to trust the politicians. (actually not right to trust them)

Any corrupt government official must be a hero. (hello?)

Winning is the saddest thing to happen to a champion. (actually it’s the best thing)

6. (semantic inversion/language re-presentation) PARADOX - a statement that is self-

contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless, appears self-
contradictory but actually has a basis in truth
ex. (youth-young seem contradicting but actually this means youth is wasted as young
where a teener for example doesn’t maximize his young days for good things, a case
where a teener gets his potentials to waste like drug addiction)
 Good success is more fatal than bad – Chapman (people are drowned with success
like Rolando Navarette)

Whosoever loses his life, shall find it. (biblically correct)

Those who are first shall be the last and those last shall be the first. (biblically correct)

The only way to love her dearly is to never love her at all. (she doesn’t deserve so
and yet she rather appreciates it)

I can only understand my boss when I don’t try understanding him. (he seems to be
too difficult to be understood; so let him be that way)

This nation will be great if it does not aim to be so. (it does not need to be great
actually)

I found and met Jesus in hell. (an addict learnt of Him in his drug dependence)

For what the waves could never wash away/ This proper youth has wasted in a day.-
--The Arte of English Poesie, 226

7. (semantic inversion/language re-presentation) OXYMORON - a contradictory

phrase, placing two ordinarily opposing terms juxtaposed or adjacent to one another,
a compressed paradox,
ex. cheerful pessimist
harmonious discord
conspicuous by his absence
hating love
The jacket was made with genuine imitation leather.
cruel kindness; laborious idleness
O modest wantons! wanton modesty!---The Rape of Lucrece, 401
I must be cruel only to be kind (Shakespeare, Hamlet).
jumbo shrimp, sophisticated rednecks, and military intelligenc

"without laws, we can have no freedom." (seemingly without laws, we’re free to
do anything, but laws help us enjoy true freedom)

"Cowards die many times before their deaths" (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)
democratized dictatorship
organized disunity
brave cowards
motherly father
fatherly mother
deafening silence

8. (semantic inversion/language re-presentation) APORIA - a professing, or matter about

which one professes, to be at a loss what course to pursue, where to begin, what to say,
etc., expression of doubt (often feigned for the purpose of just expressing what if he
actually doesn’t know) by which a speaker appears uncertain as to what he should think,
say, or do
ex. Whether he took them from his fellows more impudently, gave them to an harlot
more lasciviously, removed them from the Roman people more wickedly or altered
them more presumptuously, I cannot well declare.---The Garden of Eloquence, 109

If I am truly in love with a woman, I don’t know what to do ever when I lose her.
 If sleeping late in the night for two weeks can’t tell how I really feel for you, tell me
what then tells it right.

Should I send her letter or flowers? That I do not know.

After a long time, is this what I must take up from my father?

Of my many choices to make, I am undecided if I even need to make one.

With these books before my eyes, I guess I have yet to think why I must read any of
them.

Is this the journey to Chicago or just a trip going back home in Israel?

FIGURES BY SCHEMES

1. (structure of balance, repetition of idea by negation) ANTITHESIS - an opposition or

contrast of ideas, especially one emphasized by the positions of the contrasting words, as
when placed at the beginning and end of a single sentence or clause, or in corresponding
positions in two or more sentences or clauses, juxtaposition of two words, phrases, clauses,
or sentences contrasted or opposed in meaning in such a way as to give emphasis to
contrasting ideas
ex. The king proposes, parliament disposes.
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." —
Abraham Lincoln

“To err is human, to forgive divine” – Alexander Pope

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no

virtue (Barry Goldwater).

Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more (
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)

The prodigal robs his heir.

The miser robs himself.

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” – Shakespeare

"Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell." - John Dryden's description in
"The Hind and the Panther"

“Saying is one thing, doing another.” – Montaigne

I may be kind, but I’d rather be just.

The rich man has won the hearts of the poor just as he has lost his fame among the
elite.

The wicked disguised as gentle while looking truer in a sense.

2. (repetition of words) ANADIPLOSIS - the repetition of the last word (or phrase) from
the previous line, clause, or sentence at the beginning of the next
 ex. The love of wicked men converts to fear,
That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both
To worthy danger and deserved death.
—Shakespeare, Richard II 5.1.66-68

The following shows anadiplosis of a phrase:

...a man could stand and see the whole wide reach
Of blue Atlantic. But he stayed ashore.

He stayed ashore and plowed, and drilled his rows...

— Charles Bruce, “Biography”

For I have loved long, I crave reward/ Reward me not unkindly: think on kindness,/
Kindness becommeth those of high regard/ Regard with clemency a poor man's
blindness---Fidessa, 16

Let’s ridicule the times. The times of despair must really be ridiculed. Ridicule
those times of trials. Trials are survivors of pain. Pain and glory are actually not set
apart. Set them apart and you get none.

3. (repetition of words) ANAPHORA - repetition of a word or words at the beginning of

two or more successive clauses or lines, figure of repetition that occurs when the first word
or set of words in one sentence, clause, or phrase is/are repeated at the beginning of
successive sentences, clauses, or phrases; repetition of the initial word

ex. "My Republican Party today -- it is not a conservative Party. It is soft on globalism.
It is soft on big government. It is soft on the 2nd Amendment. It is soft on life."

- Pat Buchanan, Radio interview with Rush Limbaugh

"To raise a happy, healthy, and hopeful child, it takes a family; it takes teachers; it
takes clergy; it takes business people; it takes community leaders; it takes those who
protect our health and safety. It takes all of us."
- Hillary Clinton, 1996 Democratic National Convention Address

"The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless
some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of
trail."
- Mario Cuomo, 1984 Democratic National Convention Address

"We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our
future. We are a people in search of a national community."

- Barbara Jordan, 1976 Democratic Convention Keynote Address

"What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States
is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but
is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice
toward those who still suffer within our country whether they be white or whether
they be black."

- Robert F. Kennedy, Announcing the death of Martin Luther King

 "I am going to discuss this war in which we've been engaged for a hundred and five
years; the war declared by Karl Marx in 1848, re-declared and brought down to
date by Lenin, again re-declared by Stalin, and again re-declared by the Kremlin
within the last five or six weeks."

-- Senator Joe McCarthy

"Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last
night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked
Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night, the
Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway
Island."

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor Address

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall
fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing
strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall
fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields
and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender (Churchill).

4. (repetition of ideas) TAUTOLOGY - needless repetition of the same idea in different

words; pleonasm on the level of a sentence or sentences, repetition of a statement, of acts,
experiences, etc., especially when superfluous. Synonymy: Redundancy, tautology,
pleonasm, verbosity, verbiage, prolixity, diffuseness, circumlocution, periphrasis
ex. If you have a friend, keep your friend, for an old friend is to be preferred before a
new friend, this I say to you as your friend.---The Garden of Eloquence, 49

With malice toward none, with charity for all (Lincoln, Second Inaugural)

Every man and woman in this hall is protected to the full coverage of the law. No
one is ever forsaken. You all can be sure of that.

Only the computers can help you finish the reporting. Nothing else can do just the
same.

Let justice prevail at all times. In no time should a crime get loose.

I couldn’t sleep all night. I stayed awake till sunrise. Was it sleepless they say?

5. (omission of letter) SYNCOPE - omission of letters from the middle of a word

ex. Thou thy worldly task hast done,/ Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages. Cymberline,
4.2.258

entrapment –entrapm’t
hallow – hal’ow
over – o’er
this – t’is
never – ne’er
burial – bur’l
turbocharger – t’charger
timberwolves – t’wolves
6. (omission of letter) APHAERSIS – omission of letters from the beginning of a word
 ex. Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?---Hamlet, 2.2.561

especially - specially

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Exercise: Identify the figures of speech in the following sentences.

1. I was in no despair when I wouldn’t feel your absence.

2. I urge every one of you to seek in your deep sleep the neck of your bow to dictatorship.

3. What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young – George Bernard Shaw

4. We train to lose in the game.

5. The audience was so much fed with his excuse me in his speech.

6. "It can't be wrong if it feels so right" —Debbie Boone

7. Seeing my woman go away and hearing her bid me farewell, I ask if I should cry.

8. Your answers are perfectly wrong.

9. I have made tens of journeys in my life. My life is a journey itself.

10. “We cannot dedicate; we cannot consecrate; we cannot hallow this ground” – Pres.
John F. Kennedy.

11. This message is solely intended for the girls. The boys are not concerned.

12. The switch clicked on the signal of an instructor’s warning.