J.D. Gets More Privacy

Do you want this book published
or just printed?

Angus Cameron, top editor at Little, Brown, to J.D. Salinger

reductio ad absurdum, “reduction to absurdity.” Also erotesis (eh-ro-TEE-sis), the rhetorical question.

 J.D. Salinger died Wednesday at age 91, almost six decades after his adolescent-angst novel, Catcher in the Rye, came out. Already something of a recluse, he said he didn’t want any publicity for the book; not even review copies.

Angus Cameron’s reply neatly reveals the difference between publishing a book and merely printing it. He deploys a reductio ad absurdum, an argument technique that boils the opponent’s argument down to its ludicrous core.

Salinger lived in extreme privacy in Cornish, New Hampshire, near Figaro’s neck of the woods. The townsfolk discouraged or even misled nosey types and journalists. Once, however, we were browsing in a local bookstore when an old man came in, bought a book, and quickly left. A friend of ours who lived in Cornish nodded toward the door and muttered, “That was J.D. Salinger.”

May he rest in the remotest part of heaven.

Prick It. Does It Bleed?

The dissent says that “ ‘speech’ ” refers to oral communications of human beings, and since corporations are not human beings they cannot speak. This is sophistry.

Justice Antony Scalia, footnote in a concurring opinion in Citizens United v. FEC

 synecdoche, the generalizing trope. From the Greek, meaning “swap.”

For the past century, federal law has prohibited corporations from using their own treasury to promote or trash a candidate. The Supremes yesterday upended Congress with a sweeping judgment: corporations have the same speech rights as people, and can spend their money on political speech without government interference.

Figaro is thrilled that one of the most important Supreme Court cases in a decade revolved around a synecdoche. This tricky trope takes a part or constituent of something and makes it stand for the whole. Or the reverse. “America won 15 golds in Canada” is a double synecdoche—“golds” stand for gold medals, and “America” stands for the athletes. Got it?

In the Supreme Court case, the question came down to whether a corporation—that potent mix of people and money—is, under the Constitution, a person. Their answer: yes. And so the synecdoche “I got screwed by my banker” takes on a richer, more literal meaning.

We urge you to buy protection.

A Sincere Review of the SarcMark

Equal rights for Sarcasm –
Use the SarcMark.

Website for SarcMark

mycterismus (mik-ter-IS-mus), the sneer.  From the Greek, meaning “sneer.”

Questions get a mark, right? Even exclamations have a point! But poor sarcasm has gone unpunctuated—until now. A very earnest software developer offers a character that lets people know when you don’t mean what you say. For only $1.99, you can download the SarcMark (a symbol that, perhaps intentionally, seems to depict something being flushed down a toilet) and use it to end all your snarky sentences.

Personally, Figaro prefers his irony to remain ironic. Sarcasm marks have been absent from keyboards for a good reason. While an exclamation point amplifies a sentence, turning a holy cow into a HOLY COW!, a SarcMark undoes the sarcasm. The moment you say you’re being ironic, you aren’t.

On the other hand, unironic irony can become a form of irony, if it’s accompanied by an ironically ludicrous gesture. This is where the mycterismus comes in. A gesture or expression that shows contempt for the listener, it gets magnificent use in a Monty Python movie and in the routine that made Steve Martin famous: “Excuuuuuuuuusssssse meeeeeeeee.”

In other words, the SarcMark is a kind of emoticon. Most emoticons are free, and they’re absolutely worth the price. But while other emoticons show a smiley (or frowny) face, the SarcMark is more abstract. And abstract toilet art is worth a lot more than a smiley face.

NOT.

Onward, Christian Conspirators

This Year, Give Presence

Slogan for Advent Conspiracy

 antanaclasis (an-tan-AC-la-sis), the pun. From the Greek, meaning, more or less, “boomerang.”

The War on Christmas rages on. Congressional Democrats are pushing the health care vote all the way to Christmas Eve or beyond, thus proving that the multi-trillion-dollar bill is just a cover for the liberals’ assault on Jesus. Meanwhile, the defending army busily outs Christmasphobic stores and slams President Obama for preempting the sacred A Charlie Brown Christmas to order 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. As if that had anything to do with Christmas!

Meanwhile, a group of pastors has decided that the holiday’s true spirit may not lie in liturgically dancing beagles or clerks mumbling “Merry Christmas.”  The Advent Conspiracy urges people to spend a bit less of their credit cards and more of their time. Their slogan, “Give Presence,” constitutes a worthy use of an antanaclasis, which repeats the exact sound of a word while giving it a different meaning. For instance, “Call girl” is an antanaclasis of “Call, girl!”

The antanaclasis applies only to homonymic puns—words that sound exactly the same. Many years ago, Figaro got into a dispute with a co-worker who insisted that the only correct pronunciation of “harass” emphasized the first syllable. Figaro argued that “haRASS” was equally valid. At a meeting that afternoon, the annoying coworker attempted to correct Figaro’s grammar.

A colleague took her side: “She’s a good editor.”

“Yeah?” Figaro retorted. “She doesn’t know ‘harass’ from her elbow.”

This, dear reader, was a paronomasia, or near-pun. And it earned him a long lecture from the H.R. director. As if that had anything to do with Christmas.

Big Planets Don't Cry

I had moist eyes during Obama’s election day speech in Chicago. But let me tell you: he does not get it.

James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

reluctant conclusion, the eunoia enhancer; also anacoluthon (ah-na-co-LOO-thon), the grammar switcher.

Today’s quote employs one of Figaro’s favorite argument tools: the reluctant conclusion. You claim you used to be on the other side, but facts or circumstances forced you to change your mind.

The cool thing is, Hansen switches grammar while he switches sides. “I had moist eyes,” he says in the past tense. Then he changes to the present tense, “But let me tell you…” The last four words, “he does not get it” strike monosyllabically like a hand pounding a podium.

Figaro does hate that expression, though. How can we get it when “it” has no antecedent?

What Obama doesn’t get, according to Hansen is the impending apocalypse: “global chaos,” with a planet “in imminent danger of crashing.” Obama’s “politics as usual” won’t save us, Hansen says. But in America, politics is usual. We’re a republic, not a dictatorship. Hansen is a great preacher, but the sermon has to get beyond the choir.

 Snappy Answer: Does not get what?

Gaga Logic

You gonna get that,
Then I need the money.

Lady Gaga, lyrics from “Kaboom”

enthymeme (EN-thih-meme), the argument packet. From the Greek, meaning “something in the mind.”

Figaro loves a Lady, even a lady who personifies a foul-mouthed hooker. While we exercise a very broad definition of “lady” (and don’t even think there’s a pun in that), we’re especially enamored of ladies who use Aristotelian logic.

Lady Gaga does in her hit song what the philosopher did in his Rhetoric: both reduce the logical syllogism to the more succinct enthymeme.  The device takes a commonplace—a belief, value, attitude, or (in this case) desire—and uses it as a first step in convincing the audience.

Syllogism:

You desire my, uh, that.
Successful acquisition of that requires a quid pro quo.
Therefore, you must fulfill my need for money.

Gaga Enthymeme (English translation):

You intend to acquire that.
So you must pay money for that.

Aristotle understood that the middle line of a syllogism is painfully obvious, and therefore worth eliminating.

Similarly, Lady Gaga’s That needs no explicit antecedant. And Figaro is happy to avoid it.

Snappy Answer: I’ll see your That and raise you a This.