Blind, Yes. Faith, No.

It is this kind of Blind Faith — which is ironically the name of an actual rig in the Gulf — that has led to this kind of disaster.

Congressman Edward Markey at the oil disaster hearing

Parenthesis, the insertion. From the Greek, meaning “insertion.”

The BP catastrophe wouldn’t happen on our rigs, say the chairmen of Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Anticipating their comments, Ed Markey came up with the best quote at the hearings.

We don’t think of a parenthesis as a figure of speech, but that’s exactly how it started its career. Parentheses aren’t punctuation; those little half-circles denote them. Used deftly, they can add an eyebrow-raising “oh-by-the-way” to a sentence, reinforcing a point in a way that makes it seem inevitable.

Markey did this by working backwards. His staff discovered that Blind Faith is the name of a rig; presumably in honor of the great blues-rock band, not their philosophy on safety. He uses the phrase as if it’s his own, then parenthesizes the rig.

Result: great irony. Great parenthesis. Rotten oil execs.

Would an Amorous Ferret Be Better?

It was once said in another context that being in close quarters with such a volatile person was like being locked in a phone booth with an enraged ferret.

Divorce filed on behalf of Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons, quoted in the Las Vegas Sun

Meme, the idiom of the Web. From the Greek mimema, meaning “something imitated.”

Figaro will miss Jim Gibbons, who just lost the Republican primary for governor. He dallied (or something) with a former Playboy centerfold and a cocktail waitress, then claimed he hadn’t had sex with anyone, including his wife, in decades. (That admission probably shocked Nevadans more than the centerfold and cocktail waitress.)

Best of all, he’s responsible for the enraged ferret, an expression that has entered the zeitgeist as an Internet meme.

A meme can be a phrase, a picture, a joke, a grammatically challenged cat, or anything else that can be imitated. Coined by Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene, the meme is the cultural version of a gene, something that spreads and replicates itself in the cultural body.

So why does Figaro call a meme the Internet version of an idiom? Because, like an idiom, it can stand on its own, has a discrete meaning, and can get imitated. Like a barrelful of monkeys or wooden nickels, the idiom and the meme are in the same kettle of fish. The “enraged ferret” is a cat on a hot tin roof, without the cat and the roof.

Someone has already reserved the web address. Expect LOL Ferrets to follow.

The Devil Wears Wingtips

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.

Washington Made Me Cuckold Myself!

“In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon, often twisted, for political gain, I am resigning rather than put my family through that painful, drawn-out process.”

Indiana Rep. Mark Souder, in the Washington Post

metastasis (meh-TAH-stah-sis), the issue shifter. From the Greek, meaning “changing stance.”

Figarist Arie sent this quote into Ask Figaro, and fellow Figarist Al surmised that the congressman was employing a metastasis. Bing! 

The question is what kind of rhetoric lies behind a member of Congress who cheats on his wife and then quits to save his family from…the shame? No, Washington! It is indeed a metastasis—a word that literally means “changing stance.”

A particular form of metastasis is metastasizing in politics, where the speaker attacks on the basis of his own weakness. The Swift Boaters falsely slammed Kerry for being a Vietnam shirker, providing cover for George W. Bush’s, um, non-Vietnam service. The ploy seems awfully transparent, especially when delivered by a cheating husband—how dare you hurt my family, fellow politicians?—but it seems to work.

Why? Because tactics like that appeal to our increasingly tribal culture. If you’re a member of the congressman’s party, you see the media as a common enemy. If you’re an opponent, you’re not going to listen to him anyway. And if you’re under him, you’re probably not his wife.

Left Behind

We’re putting a tremendous amount of value on being able to pick the right one out of four little bubbles. 

Diane Ravitch on No Child Left Behind, interviewed in Slate

epiphoneme, the memorable sum-up. From the Greek, epiphonema, meaning “speak out on.”

No thinker did more to push for No Child Left Behind than Diane Ravitch, who served as assistant secretary of education under George Bush the First. She got her reforms, but now she calls them “deforms.” In a new book, she says she was flat-out wrong.

Her take on No Child Left Behind, the federal law that mandates tests to ensure accountability of public schools, boils down to the ultimate boil-down figure.  Pay close attention, class: the epiphoneme can make the difference whether you pass or fail as a memorable person yourself.

The figure acts like a reductio ad absurdum without the absurdum. Reduce an issue to its simplest, starkest point. If the result adds wisdom, you win. If you sound like Sarah Palin, you lose.

One of the most winning epiphonemes of all time comes from Charles Darwin, who neatly wrapped up human evolution and stuck a tail on it.  (You can see other examples from Figaro here and here.)

We’ll declare Ravitch a winner as well. But we’ll give her an F for timing.

You Shake. I’ll Stir.

You ought to get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini.

“Every Day’s a Holiday” (1937)

antanaclasis, the pun. From the Greek, meaning, more or less, boomerang.

Technically, of course, the martini gets into the drinker. One generally doesn’t get into a martini without a large supply of bathtub gin.

Bertie Wooster, P.G. Wodehouse’s feckless English gentleman-about-town, often talked about wrapping himself around a drink. As with many good figures, the nonsense helps make it funny. But the liquid essence of the quote consists of some dry humor of its own: the word “dry.” It’s a special kind of pun that uses “wet” as a counterpoint to set it up.

The antanaclasis is that tricky kind of pun. It plays on a previous word, often through some sort of real or applied repetition; as in, “You ought to get into dry clothes and into a dry martini.”

Try the technique yourself by screwing up a cliché.  For instance, if your significant is a fashion hound, try something like: “The more clothes you change, the more you remain the same.”

Then pour a martini.