Figures of Speech Served Fresh

Even though this site seems dead. I am learning a lot on the section on figures. It satisfying during a conversation to use a figure and control the issue and the moment. I found the redefining figure very powerful. People just look at you and you can see the wheels turning in their head.

how do i join? Didn't see a button for that.

Anyone know of any good forums for the discussion of these concepts?

Hello,

Are you on sabbatical? I'm reading your book and have not found anything "served fresh" in 2009. IMWTK.

Can you break down some of the rhetorical devices used by Pat Condell on Youtube? He has a very clear style that stands out to me. Granted, I think the messages he sends are more of a comedy than a true attempt to gently convince large groups to change their ways. However he has a way of clearly stating a point with entertaining twists of wit requiring a full breath to smite his opponents with. It isn't a style I would ever exclusively use in convincing someone, but I feel understanding his fundamental algorithm would be very useful. To see more subtle examples of his techniques to me would be indispensable.

By the way, I would like to say that your book has helped me as much as any Dale Carnegie or Napoleon Hill or any such book of that broad theme and high calibre, if not more. Even just today I can recall knowingly using a memory of your book to eat where I wanted by offering first the option I knew she would dispise most. Not many days occur in which I do not use a direct or derived technique from your work.

Many Thanks,

Keith

It has been suggested that the phrase "most excellent" is a tautology because it uses two superlatives. But it seems to me that "excellent" is not an absolute. One could have several pizzas which are all excellent. But some of them could be more excellent than others and one could be the "most excellent" of them all.

What do you think?

Hello, i'm new here. Probably you gona think it's a silly quistion, but i would like to ask what does it mean Figaro? is it italian word? What is the meaning of this word?

Thank You for the answer

Toma

Is this a dead site now?

Figaro,

I read then reread your book on rhetoric and am wondering how best to practice these skills. Is there a boot camp for learning this stuff that is geared for people in the technical field?

Al

Not intending to post, just not sure how to let you know that I somehow dropped off the "Daily (Sic) Figure" mailing list, and I want back on. Glanced at my copy of "Thank You For Arguing" yesterday and realized I'd gone through most of 2008 without your insighful analysis. Your recent-ish comments on Gov. Sarah Palin rubbed salt in the proverbial wound. Anyway, deal me in, please.

I'm heavily considering becoming a professor of rhetoric or effective, persuasive writing. What path would I need to travel for that destination? Would it be a degree in English or Communication or would I need to patchwork needed classes through a Liberal Arts degree?

Hi Figaro,
loved your article in Spirit!
Can you recommend a good powerpoint design consultant? I teach all-day courses on the solar industry and do a pretty good job, but when i googled 'rich media' I found i'm only using a small % of the techniques out there. Am ready to invest in some more professional help.
Liz M

Dear Fig.,

Obama said: "And if a voice can change a room it can change a city. And if it can change a city it can change a state. If it can change a state it can change a country, and if it can change a country it can change the world." November 9, 2007.
What is the rhetorical device?
Yrs,
Arie Vrolijk

Dear Figaro,
Just got back from New York via Southwest Airlines. I was startled to see you shilling Roombas and Asus Eee PCs (you just made that up, didn't you?) for their in-flight magazine. What gives? Has the commode-based economy forced you to abandon all principles and pitch advertorials? Any way I can get in on a gig like that?
Just wondering.
Ciao, Bella

Dear Bella,
You sound like my Sixties-saturated brother, who believes I should sacrifice the kids' college tuition for rhetoric's sake. Most of my income is from magazine consulting.

My biggest gig is Southwest Airlines, the nicest company I've ever worked with (really). As the remote-control editorial director, I write the monthly editor's letter. The one you read introduced a special issue called "Kind Tech." Personal technology is moving beyond productivity to improving lives; not replacing people but enhancing them.

As for the Eee and Roomba, the magazine gets little to no electronic advertising, and nobody paid me for it. I really do love the little microcomputer and its Linux system. Call me shallow.

Yrs,
Fig

Hi Fig. Great site! I want to thank you, first off, because I teach rhetoric, and this site is a great resource for my students---and for me! I have been really enjoying reading your analyses of the latest political rhetrickery, as Wayne Booth once renamed deceptive rhetoric, of course. Your insights are both instructive and fun to read.

I am wondering if you can help me with the name of a trope. I remember hearing about it long ago, but I can't locate it in my Lanham's Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. This trope I'm thinking of is when a rhetor says she's not going to say something (because it would supposedly be rude, or off-topic, or what have you)---but at the same time, she is actually saying it, and sometimes even going into great detail about *exactly* that which she claims she's not going to talk about. I've always liked it, but its name has now vanished from my memory.

Can you help me out?

Thanks!
Lisa

Dear Lisa,

But of course! When you say something by saying you're not going to say it ("I'm not going to tell you that Miami is a jock school..."), you're slinging an APOPHASIS (a-PAH-fa-sis), the "I'm not going to say it but I will" figure of thought. Search for the figure on the right and you'll find a number of examples.

While you're at it, search for "trope." You'll find some very cool stuff, and Figaro doesn't mind saying it.

By the way: Figaro's wife is a Miami U of Ohio grad, and she's very, very well educated. Let me know if you want me to do a phoner with your class; just did a 3-hour gig this morning with a university--in Ohio, actually. Great fun.

Yrs,
Fig.

Dear Figaro:

Is there a figure of speech (such as personification, metaphor, simile, or hyperbole) in this sentence from Moby Dick:"Some men die ar ebb tide;some at low water; some at the full of the flood;-and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb; Starbuck." ?
Diana

Dear Diana,
It's a conceit, the metaphor gone wild. You stick with the same metaphor and ride 'er out. There he blows!
Fig.

Dear Fig.

The reason for my last post, incidentally, is the Obama comment in the second debate of " .. some think me green behind the ears." I know of "wet behind the ears" and "green about the gills" and "rough around the edges" but this gaff seems to have gone unnoticed. (Except for Jay Leno who inferred from it that Obama was, like Mr. Spock, a Vulcan.)

Jim

What is something like "here today and out the other" called? It's evil twin is "in one ear and gone tomorrow".

Dear Figaro --

During the Vice Presidental debate, Joe Biden said this:

I haven’t heard how his policy on Iran is going to be different than George Bush’s. I haven’t heard how his policy with Israel will be different than George Bush’s. I haven’t heard how his policy on Afghanistan will be different than George Bush’s. I haven’t heard how his policy in Pakistan will be different than George Bush’s.

I thought it was Symploce but your October 5 response makes me wonder if maybe it is:
Epimone (repetition),
Epiphora (repetition at ending),
Epistrophe (repetition at ending),
Parison (structure),
or a combination of two or more schemes.

-- Sooze

Dear Figaro.
McCain (2000): Asked if he had been tortured in Vietnam, the senator said: "Facts are facts. Truth is truth. History is history." Is it a figure?
Yours,
Arie Vrolijk

Dear Arie,
McCain is using a SYMPLOCE, a figure that begins and ends succeeding phrases or clauses with the same word. The symploce is a favorite figure of George W. Bush, who keeps (in his own words) "repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in."
Fig.