“If You Need Assistance, Hang Up and Scream.”
Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at 02:18PM
Figaro

cwp_lilytomlin.jpgQuote:  "Your phone has been out for two days? Why didn’t you call before?" Phone company representative, speaking to Figaro.

Figure of Speech: Catch-22; or autophasia (auto-FAY-sia), the rule that eats itself.

Forgive us our absence, but we have been disconnected from the world for the past few days.  Figaro lives in an isolated, signal-free part of northern New England where broadband is a type of stretch pant.  He maintains his website by dialup, over a phone line that has a fainting spell during every storm.

He finally reached the phone company over a crackling voice connection, and received a perfect Catch-22 — a sort of closed loop of illogic that requires the violation of a rule in order to carry it out. The rhetorical name for this is autophasia ("speaking of oneself").

The profane name for it begins with "cluster" and ends with a four-letter word.  Figaro himself would never use it, of course.  But no one could hear him if he did.

Snappy Answer:  "I did call you.  Why couldn’t you hear me?"

Article originally appeared on Figures of Speech (http://inpraiseofargument.com/).
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