Capitol Hill Channels Robert Frost!

Economists may not like House Speaker John Boehner’s voodo deficit theories, but the man sure knows his way around a balanced sentence.  Take a word or two out, and you have yourself a taxophobic Robert Frost poem.

It’s not because the American people have lost their way. It’s because their government has let them down.

isocolon, the figure of balance. From the Greek, meaning “equal member.”

antithesis, the figure of contrast. From the Greek, meaning “opposing points.”

The isocolon uses parallel clauses of equal length to weigh things side by side. The antithesis does the same thing more aggressively, usually in the form of “not this but that.” Balanced sentences make you sound—well, balanced. When spoken aloud, they carry along an audience with a rhythm that makes your points seem inevitable.

But here’s the cool thing about the Boehner quote. Its meter is positively poetic, coming very close to an iambic pentameter: a one-two beat, five beats per line. Like Frost! Read these next lines aloud and emphasize the downbeats.

Frost: Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.

Boehner: It’s not because the people lost their way.

You could almost set Boehner’s line to country music! It’s enough to make Figaro cry.

"Never His Love."

The most important speech airing this morning is, of course, Obama’s (see our last post).  But the best one—on NPR’s morning edition—was delivered ten years ago. 

Father Mychal Judge, a New York Fire Department chaplain, was the first recorded death in the 911 World Trade Center attack. Four days later, Father Michael Duffy delivered a homily in front of 3,000 people. When Father Duffy reached for his notes, he realized he couldn’t get to them through his vestments. So he spoke his words by heart. We quote the lovely ending.

And so, this morning we come to bury Myke Judge’s body, but not his spirit. We come to bury his voice, but not his message. We come to bury his hands, but not his good works. We come to bury his heart, but not his love. Never his love.

This short passage uses several highly emotional figures. The most important:

Antithesis (an-TIH-the-sis), the contrasting figure. From the Greek, meaning “opposing thoughts.”

The antithesis weighs differences side by side: body, not spirit. Voice, not message. Hands, not works. Heart, not love.

There are some first-rate word repeaters in there as well—including the anaphora, which repeats the first words through successive phrases. (“We come…”)

And finally, there’s this:

Palilogia (pal-ih-LOW-ja), the emphatic repeater. From the Greek, meaning “speak over again.” 

“Not his love,” Father Duffy says. “Never his love.” This repetition boldfaces the word “love,” nailing the theme of his homily, while expressing the deepest kind of public emotion. It’s a near-perfect figure, and homily, to sweeten a bitter moment in our history.

A Turning Around

President Obama’s speech to Congress finally puts the focus on jobs. In a Clintonesque word repeater, he uses parallel clauses to contrast Washington with the American people.

The people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities. The question tonight is whether we’ll meet ours.

Epistrophe (e-PIS-tro-fee), the last-words repeater. From the Greek, meaning “a turning around.”

Clinton liked to talk about middle-class Americans who work hard and pay their dues. Now Obama is using the same language, deploying an excellent epistrophe to weigh Washington and the middle class side by side. Word repeaters like this one are particularly effective in speeches, because they encourage the audience to finish the orator’s sentences. 

Let’s hope the president’s turning-around figure helps do something—anything—to turn things around.

Hey, AP English Teachers!

Watch this and get your organization to invite me to your conference.

Mired Forever in Their Debt

Washington floats on a fetid sea of clichés. Witness Speaker Boehner calling an increase in the debt limit (that is, permission to pay the bills that Congress already spent) as “a blank check” for President Obama. That’s a rhetorical trifecta: metaphor, distortion, and cliché in one all-too-typical political package.

So we were heartened to see the House Democratic whip, Steny Hoyer, stand a cliché on its hoary head in the New York Times. 

Hoyer: They can’t take
‘yes’ for an answer. 

The congressman is referring, of course, to the GOP, which keeps trying to walk gracefully while the Tea Party clings screaming to its leg.

To learn more delightful ways to abuse clichés, see the instructions we’ve posted on our sister site, WordHero.org.

Yankees and Aliens

Figaro is so excited! His home state of New Hampshire has just put up an official historic marker denoting the site where Betty and Barney Hill were kidnapped and, um, experimented upon onboard an alien spacecraft.

The really interesting part, rhetorically, comes with the wording of the sign. It commemorates an alleged experience without endorsing its truth. The critical word here is “official”—a very interesting figure of thought:

Unaware endorsement (un-uh-WARE en-DOR-sment), the purloined brand. Term invented by Figaro. Related to Aristotle’s description of the rhetorical use of witnesses in his Rhetoric. 

To see the unaware endorsement at his best, you’ll want to reach the whole gripping tale on the historical marker itself: 

On the night of September 19-20, 1961, Portsmouth, N.H., couple Betty and Barney Hill experienced a close encounter with an unidentified flying object and two hours of “lost” time while driving south on Rte 3 near Lincoln. They filed an official Air Force Project Blue Book report of a brightly-lit cigar-shaped craft the next day, but were not public with their story until it was leaked in the Boston Traveler in 1965. This was the first widely-reported UFO abduction report in the United States.

The unintended endorsement uses a brand name to lend credibility without taking responsibility for the truth, and without the endorser’s permission. Why question Betty and Barney’s excellent alien adventure when it’s in the official Air Force Project Blue Book?

According to the extensive research we conducted on Wikipedia, the Project Blue Book studied accounts of UFOs from 1952 until 1970.  Alas, this ambitious study of alien spaceships yielded…no credible evidence of alien spaceships.

Thank goodness for the great state of New Hampshire, which is keeping alive the hope of curious aliens and their sexy anal probes—without actually admitting belief in them.