Quote: “If you need a clever t-shirt to seem like you have a personality, the actual subtext of the t-shirt is that you have no personality.” Hot Chicks with Douchebags blog.
Figure of Speech: concessio, the ju-jitsu figure. From the Latin, meaning “concession.” Also antistrophe, the last-word repeater. From the Greek, meaning “turn to the opposite side.”
Figaro should be doing actual work to support his Isocrates habit. But his devotion to fellow Figarists made him spend the morning with a website on hair-gelled guys with dog tags and bottle tans who pose with, um, hot chicks. It’s blogalicious: tasteless, sexist, and hilarious.
The site’s creator, douchebag1, demonstrates a colloquial mastery of figures and neologisms. (See his desperately hormonal definition of cleavite.) With today’s quotation, he offers an astute observation in a figurative two-fer. The concessio takes your opponent’s point and use it to your own advantage. Hey, clever tee shirt, which means you’re not. And the antistrophe repeats the last word in consecutive phrases or clauses. Use it to contrast a pair of ideas, such as cleverness/lameness. Or, in this case, douchebags/hot chicks.
Snappy Answer: “That’s okay. She’s with stupid.”
For more on the art of concession, see page 20 of Figaro’s book.