Rhet+Term+Resources

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**Quizlet for Rhetorical Term test ** Quizlet for Rhetorical Terms--Just Definitions

Answers to Rhetorical Terms Practice Sheet:

**A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples ** **--Plato, //Phaedrus 272// ** ||
 * || **Socrates: ** The fact is, as we said at the beginning of our discussion, that the aspiring speaker needs no knowledge of the truth about what is right or good... In courts of justice no attention is paid whatever to the truth about such topics; all that matters is plausibility... There are even some occasions when both prosecution and defense should positively suppress the facts in favor of probability, if the facts are improbable. Never mind the truth -- pursue probability through thick and thin in every kind of speech; the whole secret of the art of speaking lies in consistent adherence to this principle. **Phaedrus:** That is what those who claim to be professional teachers of rhetoric actually say, Socrates.


 * 1. [|Alliteration] : ** repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence.

*** **Let us go forth to lead the land we love. J. F. Kennedy, Inaugural
 * 2. [|Anacoluthon] : ** lack of grammatical sequence; a change in the grammatical construction within the same sentence.

*** **Agreements entered into when one state of facts exists -- are they to be maintained regardless of changing conditions? J. Diefenbaker
 * 3. [|Anadiplosis] : ** ("doubling back") the rhetorical repetition of one or several words; specifically, repetition of a word that ends one clause at the beginning of the next.

*** **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business. Francis Bacon
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">4. [|Anaphora] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">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.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">5. [|Anastrophe] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> transposition of normal word order; most often found in Latin in the case of prepositions and the words they control.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The helmsman steered; the ship moved on; yet never a breeze up blew. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">6. [|Antistrophe] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo -- without warning. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia -- without warning. In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria -- without warning. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia -- without warning. Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland -- without warning. And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand -- and the United States --without warning. Franklin D. Roosevelt
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">7. [|Antithesis] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The vases of the classical period are but the reflection of classical beauty; the vases of the archaic period are beauty itself." Sir John Beazley
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">8. [|Aporia] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> expression of doubt (often feigned) by which a speaker appears uncertain as to what he should think, say, or do.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do?' [|Luke 16]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">9. [|Aposiopesis] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> a form of ellipse by which a speaker comes to an abrupt halt, seemingly overcome by passion (fear, excitement, etc.) or modesty.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">*His behavior was—but I blush to mention it.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">10. [|Apostrophe] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> a sudden turn from the general audience to address a specific group or person or personified abstraction absent or present.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Pipit sate upright in her chairSome distance from where I was sitting; T. S. Eliot, "A Cooking Egg"
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">11. [|Archaism] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> use of an older or obsolete form.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">12. [|Assonance] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> repetition of the same sound in words close to each other.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. J. F. Kennedy, Inaugural **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">13. [|Asyndeton] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> lack of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words.
 * <span style="color: #943634; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">14. Bathos: **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">An abrupt, unintended transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">In the United States, Osama bin Laden is wanted for conspiracy, murder, terrorism, and unpaid parking tickets.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">15. [|Cacophony] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> harsh joining of sounds.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work your wicked will. W. Churchill
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">16. [|Catachresis] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> a harsh metaphor involving the use of a word beyond its strict sphere.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear. MacArthur, Farewell Address
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">17. [|Chiasmus] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels (a-b-a-b) but in inverted order (a-b-b-a); from shape of the Greek letter chi (X).

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always. MacArthur **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Renown'd for conquest, and in council skill'd. Addison
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">18. [|Climax] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of ascending power. Often the last emphatic word in one phrase or clause is repeated as the first emphatic word of the next.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Tennyson, Ulysses
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">19. [|Euphemism] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> substitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">When the final news came, there would be a ring at the front door -- a wife in this situation finds herself staring at the front door as if she no longer owns it or controls it--and outside the door would be a man... come to inform her that unfortunately something has happened out there, and her husband's body now lies incinerated in the swamps or the pines or the palmetto grass, "burned beyond recognition," which anyone who had been around an air base very long (fortunately Jane had not) realized was quite an artful euphemism to describe a human body that now looked like an enormous fowl that has burned up in a stove, burned a blackish brown all over, greasy and blistered, fried, in a word, with not only the entire face and all the hair and the ears burned off, not to mention all the clothing, but also the hands and feet, with what remains of the arms and legs bent at the knees and elbows and burned into absolutely rigid angles, burned a greasy blackish brown like the bursting body itself, so that this husband, father, officer, gentleman, this ornamentum of some mother's eye, His Majesty the Baby of just twenty-odd years back, has been reduced to a charred hulk with wings and shanks sticking out of it. Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">20. [|Hendiadys] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> use of two words connected by a conjunction to express a single complex idea.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">It sure is nice and cool today! (for "pleasantly cool") **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Psalms 116
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">21. [|Hyperbole] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">My vegetable love should growVaster than empires, and more slow;An hundred years should got to praiseThine eyes and on thine forehead gaze;Two hundred to adore each breast,But thirty thousand to the rest. Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">22. [|Hysteron Proteron] **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> ("later-earlier"): inversion of the natural sequence of events, often meant to stress the event which, though later in time, is considered the more important.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Put on your shoes and socks!
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">23. [|Irony] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;And Brutus is an honourable man. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">24. [|Litotes] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> understatement, for intensification, by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed. (Sometimes used synonymously with meiosis.)

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">A few unannounced quizzes are not inconceivable. **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">War is not healthy for children and other living things. **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day. (meiosis)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">25. [|Metaphor] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. Shakespeare, Macbeth **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">. . . while he learned the language (that meager and fragile thread . . . by which the little surface corners and edges of men's secret and solitary lives may be joined for an instant now and then before sinking back into the darkness. . . ) Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. W. Churchill
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">26. [|Metonymy] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> substitution of one word for another which it suggests.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">He is a man of the cloth. **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The pen is mightier than the sword. **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">*The bacon sizzled in the pan. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">*The hiss of the crowd startled the speaker.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">27. [|Onomatopoeia] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> use of words to imitate natural sounds; accommodation of sound to sense.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">28. [|Oxymoron] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words which seem to contradict one another.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I must be cruel only to be kind. Shakespeare, Hamlet
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">29. [|Paradox] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> an assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, but that may yet have some truth in it.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young. George Bernard Shaw
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">30. [|Paraprosdokian] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> surprise or unexpected ending of a phrase or series.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">He was at his best when the going was good. Alistair Cooke on the Duke of Windsor **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">There but for the grace of God -- goes God. Churchill
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">31. [|Paronomasia] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> use of similar sounding words; often etymological word-play.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">...culled cash, or cold cash, and then it turned into a gold cache. E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Thou art Peter (Greek petros), and upon this rock (Greek petra) I shall build my church. Matthew 16 **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The dying Mercutio: Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">32. [|Personification] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> attribution of personality to an impersonal thing.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">33. [|Pleonasm] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> use of superfluous or redundant words, often enriching the thought.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">No one, rich or poor, will be excepted. **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Ears pierced while you wait! **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I have seen no stranger sight since I was born.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">34. [|Polysyndeton] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> the repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Bay and she was all right only she was full of water. Hemingway, After the Storm
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">35. [|Simile] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> an explicit comparison between two things using 'like' or 'as'.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">My love is as a fever, longing stillFor that which longer nurseth the disease, Shakespeare, Sonnet CXLVII **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Reason is to faith as the eye to the telescope. D. Hume [?] **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Let us go then, you and I,While the evening is spread out against the sky,Like a patient etherized upon a table... T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">36. [|Syllepsis] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> use of a word with two others, with each of which it is understood differently.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately. Benjamin Franklin


 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">37. [|Synecdoche] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> understanding one thing with another; the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part. (A form of metonymy.)

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I should have been a pair of ragged clawsScuttling across the floors of silent seas.T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The U.S. won three gold medals. (Instead of, The members of the U.S. boxing team won three gold medals.)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">38. [|Synesis] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">the agreement of words according to logic, and not by the grammatical form; a kind of anacoluthon.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6 **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. Acts 6
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">39. [|Tautology] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase, or sentence.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">With malice toward none, with charity for all. Lincoln, Second Inaugural
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">40. [|Zeugma] : **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> two different words linked to a verb or an adjective which is strictly appropriate to only one of them.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">* **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burnThe living record of your memory.