Rhetorical Terms Presentation # 10

1. Rhetorical Terms Presentation # 10 By: Tessa Brown and Nicole Schnabel

2. Anesis (an-NEE-sis): • A figure of addition that occurs when a concluding sentence, clause, or phrase is added to a statement which purposely diminishes the effect of what has been previously stated. • Adding a concluding sentence that diminishes the effect of what has been said previously. • Example: "Mulan: “Maybe, I didn’t go for my father. Maybe, what I really wanted was to prove I could do things right, so when I looked in the mirror I’d see someone worthwhile. But I was wrong. I see nothing.” -- delivered by Ming-Na (from the movieMulan) • Example: "Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him the LORD had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper.” -- II Kings 5:1

3. Examples • “Every nerve and every muscle stood out on their arms, on their backs and their thighs, and one almost heard them stretching to breaking point. In the end Okonkwo threw the Cat.” --Things fall apart, Chinua Achebe • “Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this.” – Ronald Reagan • “I cut the tomatoes and washed the lettuce. I worked for hours making sure the meat was cooked right. I set the glasses on the table. Still, my guests cancelled dinner.

4. Apotheosis (a·poth·e·o·sis)  (ə-pŏth'ē-ō'sĭs, ăp'ə-thē'ə-sĭs): • elevation to divine status • "Many observers have tried to attribute Warhol's current apotheosis to the subversive power of artistic vision" (Michiko Kakutani).

5. Examples • The firefighter ran out of the burning building clutching the lost child. In that moment everyone at the scene believed they were witnessing an angel. • “She was the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves. In ordinary life Chielo was a widow with two children.” – Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe • “In the far right panel, Clemente passes from greatness into legend; first he is being honored for his three-thousandth hit, then his spirit is received by a figure of death in the Atlantic's watery grave, and finally his widow holds the plaque for his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.” – David Maraniss

6. Antitheton (an-tith'-e-ton): • A proof or composition constructed of contraries. • Antitheton is closely related to and sometimes confused with the figure of speech that juxtaposes opposing terms, antithesis. However, it is more properly considered a figure of thought. • Example: Flattery hath pleasant beginnings, but the same hath very bitter endings. — R. Sherry

7. Examples • My dream started out with a warm sun, but then ended with the coldest of moons. • “ The total effect was gay and brisk, but if one picked out the flute as it went up and down and then broke up into short snatches, one saw that there was sorrow and grief there.” – Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe • “But real life is only one kind of life -- there is also the life of the imagination.” – E.B. White

8. Apophasis (a·poph·a·sis) (ə-pŏf'ə-sĭs) : • noun • Allusion to something by denying that it will be mentioned. • Example: I will not bring up my opponent's questionable financial dealings.

9. Examples • I could go on all day about the dangers of black ice, but I will not waste your valuable time. • “Eventually everybody realizes that the whole darned thing was just a silly misunderstanding. That is all we are going to say about this.” – Dave Barry, That Blasted Year • She's bright, well-read, and personable--to say nothing of her modesty and generosity. • “You see, I owe that man a thousand cowries. But he has not come to wake me up in the morning for it.” – Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

10. Aporia (a·po·ri·a) (ə-pôr'ē-ə, ə-pōr'-): • Noun • A figure of speech in which the speaker expresses or purports to be in doubt about a question. • A figure of speech in which the speaker expresses real or simulated doubt or perplexity. • Hamlet's famous ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy is an extended example. • "I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:I am no orator, as Brutus is;But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man,That love my friend."(Antony in Shakepeare's Julius Caesar) • "I don't thinks it's proving anything, Doc. As a matter of fact, I don't even know what it means. It's just one of those things that gets in my head and keeps rolling around in there like a marble."(Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo in the episode "Double Exposure," Columbo)

11. Examples • I am not so sure I can accept Tom's reasons for wanting another new jet. • do not know whether this legislation will work all the miracles promised by its backers, but it does seem clear that . . . . • “No it is for you I think,” - Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart

12. Polysyndenton (pol-y-syn'-de-ton): • Employing many conjunctions between clauses, often slowing the tempo or rhythm. • Example: 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 Key and she was all right only she was full of water.—Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."

13. Examples • I need milk and sugar and lettuce and meat from the grocery store for dinner. • “The swellings oozed blood and pus and were followed by spreading boils and black blotches on the skin from internal bleeding.” – Barbara Tuchman, A Description of the Bubonic Plague • “The muscles on their arms and their thighs and on their backs stood out and twitched.” – Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

14. Procatalepsis (pro-cat-a-lep'-sis): • Adjective • Refuting anticipated objections. • by anticipating an objection and answering it, permits an argument to continue moving forward while taking into account points or reasons opposing either the train of thought or its final conclusions. • It is usually argued at this point that if the government gets out of the mail delivery business, small towns like Podunk will not have any mail service. The answer to this can be found in the history of the Pony Express . . . . • This is a stupid question. Or is it? If we look closer we can find some important points here. • So who needs ice removal in a warm climate? Well the night can get very cold. And of course when it's hot every day, you may want to head for the cooler hills!

15. Examples • “Are my stories true, you ask? No, they are imaginary tales, containing fantastic characters and events. In real life, a family doesn’t have a child who looks like a mouse; in real life, a spider doesn’t spin words in her web.” – E.B. White, Letter from E.B. White • “Any wonder then that his son Okonkwo was ashamed of him? Fortunately, among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father.” – Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

16. Prolepsis (pro-lep'-sis): • A synonym for procatalepsis. • Speaking of something future as though already done or existing. A figure of anticipation. • Example: Oh, I am a dead man!The speaker refers less to the actuality of the moment as he does to the near future.

17. Examples • “And we will smile wisely and emit a streamer of drool, because we will be very old and unable to hear them.” – Dave Berry, That Blasted Year • My life plan is simple. After getting an “A” in my college of choice I will move on to medical school. • “The happy voices of children playing in open fields would then be heard. And perhaps those not so young would be playing in pairs in less open places, and old men and women would remember their youth.” – Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

18. Propaganda • Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause. • Manipulating information to make a product appear better than it is often by unfair conparison or omitting facts. • Appealing to regular people's values like family, patriotism

19. Examples • “The Democrats charge that the Republicans have created a Culture of Corruption and should be thrown out of office so the Democrats can return to power and run the scandal-free government for which they are so famous.” – Dave Barry, That Blasted Year • “I want you for the U.S. army. Enlist now.” • McDonalds is famous for their slogan, “I’m loving it.” • “ A snake was never called by its name at night because it would hear.” Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

20. Prose • noun • the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse. • Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure. • Toad, hog, assassin, mirror. Some of its favorite words, which are breath. Or handwriting: the long tail of the ‘y’ disappearing into a barn like a rodent’s, and suddenly it is winter after all. After all what? After the ponds dry up in mid-August and the children drop pins down each canyon and listen for an echo.

21. Examples • “I am a naturalized U.S. citizen, which means that, unlike native-born citizens, I had to prove to the U.S. government that I merited citizenship.” – American Dreamer • I saw John on the sidewalk, and I could not believe how tall he had gotten. • “Thank you. He who brings kola brings life.” – Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

22. Pun • the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words. • “Business at the candle factory tapered off after the holidays.” • I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me. • I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down.

23. Examples • “In the War on Terror, Osama bin Laden, who may or may not be dead, nevertheless releases another audiotape, for the first time making it downloadable from iTunes.” – Dave Barry, That Blasted Year • “Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break.”- Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

24. Synecdoche (si-nek'-do-kee): • A whole is represented by naming one of its parts (genus named for species), or vice versa (species named for genus). • Examples: • Listen, you've got to come take a look at my new set of wheels.One refers to a vehicle in terms of some of its parts, "wheels“. • The rustler bragged he'd absconded with five hundred head of longhorns.Both "head" and "longhorns" are parts of cattle that represent them as wholes

25. Examples • “I was no good at drawing so I used words instead” – E.B. White, Letter from E.B. White • “There was a sudden stir in the crowd and every eye was turned in one direction” – Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

26. Transferred Epithet • the adjective or adverb is transferred from the noun it logically belongs with, to another one which fits it grammatically but not logically. • A figure of speech in which an epithet (or adjective) grammatically qualifies a noun other than the person or thing it is actually describing. Also known as hypallage. • A transferred epithet often involves shifting a modifier from the animate to the inanimate, as in the phrase "cheerful money“.

27. Examples • "Cruel bars" as a transferred epithet:This refers to prison bars or the bars of a cage and to the fact that someone has been put into prison or into the cage unfairly. The bars themselves are not cruel, but they serve the purposes of the cruel person who uses the cage to imprison someone or something (such as a bird or an animal). The cruelty is transferred from the person who uses the cage or prison to the cage or prison itself and to the bars of the cage or prison. • Sleepless Night • Suicidal Sky • “Exhausted farms” – Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

28. Work Cited • http://www.answers.com/topic/aporia • http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/A/antitheton.htm • http://www.answers.com/topic/apotheosis • http://www.answers.com/topic/apophasis • http://www.answers.com/topic/glossary-of-rhetorical-terms • http://www.americanrhetoric.com/figures/anesis.htm • http://rhetoric.byu.edu/ • http://www.answers.com/topic/apotheosis#ixzz18r0RjCtl • http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/aporiaterm.htm • http://www.teachervision.fen.com/authors/letters-and-journals/1734.html#ixzz19EwWuQlT