The Devil Wears Wingtips
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 09:35AM
Figaro

This is the devil-in-the-details stage. It turns out the devil works for the lobbyists.

Journalist Simon Johnson on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Antistasis (an-TIS-tah-sis), the meaning shift. From the Greek, meaning “opposite stance.”

It appears that Congress will pass a tougher-than-predicted financial reform bill. By the time it gets signed by Obama and parsed into regulations, however, the Gucci-clad tenderizers on K Street will have made “reform” much easier for Wall Street to swallow. Simon Johnson, co-author of Thirteen Bankers, sums up the affair in a well-played antistasis, a figure that repeats a word while changing its connotation.

Figaro loves to screw up a good cliché, and the antistasis provides the perfect screw. Simon gives you a different picture of the devil, who’s no longer the incarnation of evil but its subcontractor. Now you try!

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. In our company, when you smoke, you’re fired.

Love makes the world go round. In your case, it goes round your penis.

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