Anvil Now Falls on Head

Quote: “It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Barack Obama, speaking in San Francisco of small-town voters.

Figure of Speech: polysyndeton (polly-SIN-deh-ton), the conjunction repeater. From the Greek, meaning “multiple connectors.”

While Figaro hates the sin, he loves the polysyndeton. Obama’s use of it, figuratively speaking, is especially deft. By linking a whole set of examples with the conjunction “or,” he conjures an image of lost souls casting about for meaning.

Of course, he must be taking his lines right out of the Republicans’ Democrat Stereotyping Book. Arrogant? Patronizing? Dismissive of deeply held values? Check and check and check.

Two days before Obama coughed up that gaffe, Figaro’s flight out of San Antonio, Texas, got delayed an hour and a half because of a “ground stop.” Commercial flights were halted to make way for corporate jets flying in fatcats to watch the Final Four basketball playoffs. Call Figaro a lefty, but it seems like the whole country is in a similar kind of ground stop.

Meanwhile, the Democrats manage to make the Republicans seem like populists. Get used to saying “President McCain,” fellow Americans.

Snappy Answer:  “They’re not the only ones getting bitter.”

Johnny, McCain, Please Report to the Principal

Quote:  “I will always believe that there is a Mr. Ravenel somewhere for every child who needs him.” John McCain, speaking to his alma mater, the Episcopal School in Alexandria, Virginia

Figure of Speech: antonomasia (an-to-no-MAY-sia), the namer. From the Greek, meaning “other name.”

While Obama’s minister continues to haunt him, and Clinton channels Rocky, Senator McCain does an early victory lap around his angry boyhood.  In a speech to his old high school, McCain recalls his English teacher, a WWII war vet and football coach.

Offer merit increases, McCain implies, and Mr. Ravenels will be springing up all over the place — a fine antonomasia that makes his personal story universal and politically relevant. The antonomasia uses a person’s name to describe a set of traits, and it serves as a rhetorical incubator for eponyms.

“He helped teach me to be a man,” McCain says. You rarely hear that phrase from a Democrat — either because it’s sexist or because no Democratic male was ever initiated into the manly mysteries.

Figaro is an independent, but he counts himself among the machismoally agnostic. Then again, you’ll never find him running for president. Even as a woman.

Snappy Answer: “Please don’t propose a No Mr. Ravenel Left Behind Act.”

He Was the Best of Preachers, He Was the Worst of Preachers

Quote: “The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.” Barack Obama in his race speech.

 Figure of Speech: enantiosis (eh nan tie OH sis), the figure of contraries. From the Greek, meaning “opposite.”

Figaro apologizes for his tardiness, a combination of constant travel and software problems.   (Does anyone know how to send group opt-in emails?) But you knew he would talk about Obama’s Big Speech eventually, didn’t you?

Thanks to his “God damn America” preacher, the Dems’ leading candidate has to walk a wobbly line between loyalty and disavowal. 

To his figurative credit, Obama manages to walk both sides of the paradoxical line with instinctive use of an enantiosis, a figure that lists a series of contraries side by side. (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”) It’s a wonderful way of showing the other side of a tarnished coin. In Obama’s case it implies that his personal loose canon blesses America—when he isn’t damning it. 

Still, with preachers like him, who needs ministers?

Snappy Answer:  “Is there one black experience?”

The President's Scan Showed Nothing, However

Quote: “We need to not rush into it. But we also need not to ignore it.”  Hank Greely, Stanford Law professor, in the March issue of the California Bar Journal.

Figaro of Speech: antisagoge (an tih sa GO gee), the Tevye figure.  From the Greek, meaning “balancing arguments.”

No, Figaro does not puruse state bar journals in his spare time. Today’s quote comes from Steve, who in Ask Figaro noted that some scientists say they can use MRI scans to tell a person’s honesty, innocence, or potential violence.

Figaro believes that all neuroscientists and law professors should study rhetoric. Brain scans have merely proven what our pals Aristotle and Gorgias knew already. For example, when you use a balanced figure like a chiasmus or one of the repetition figures, your audience’s brain fires up to complete the thought. (“Either we can control figures, or figures can…”) Acting agreeably jingles the pleasure center of the brain. Showing anger fires the audience’s amygdala, the fear and impulse center.

But the problem with brain scans is that they don’t define the terms. And how can you measure something you can’t define? Come up with a machine that can precisely parse “the truth” or “innocense,” and you’ll have Figaro’s rapt attention.

Prof. Greely is employing an antisagoge - - the on the one hand, on the other hand figure of thought. It makes you sound reasonable and fair-minded. Combine it with the reluctant conclusion (see p. 73 of Figaro’s book), and you can steer your audience without their even knowing it.

Snappy Answer: “Let us rush to ignore it. “

Is That a Salute or Are You Glad to See Me?

Quote:  “There is nothing on this earth sexier, believe me gentlemen, than a woman you have to salute in the morning.”  Jack Nicholson, in an ad for Hillary Clinton.

Figure of Speech: Hyperbaton (hy-PER-ba-ton), the disordered figure. From the Greek, meaning “switch around.”

The Nicholson ad uses a montage of movie clips, starting strangely with the Joker (“It’s time for who do you trust, hubba hubba hubba, money money money…”) and ending with A Few Good Men.

“Believe me gentlemen” is a kind of parenthesis, an insertion into a sentence that could stand on its own without it. The hyperbaton, a more generic figure, changes the usual word order. It’s a great way to emphasize part of a sentence, or delay the punchline:  “There is nothing sexier…wait for it…than a woman you have to salute in the morning.” (Note also the transposition of “on this earth” and “sexier”—same purpose).

Nicholson also uses the figure to hint at the tongue in his cheek; the ad wisely leaves out the rest of the quote, “Promote ‘em all, I say, ‘cause this is true: if you haven’t gotten [fellatio] from a superior officer, well, you’re just letting the best in life pass you by.”

Just when we were getting the image of Monica Lewinsky out of our heads.

Snappy answer:  “That depends on what you mean by ‘salute’ [insert leer].”

Nader’s Nadir

Quote: “If the Democrats can’t landslide the election this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down.” Ralph Nader, after announcing his third run for president.

Figure of Speech: anthimeria (an-thih-MER-ia), the verbing figure. From the Greek, meaning “one part for another.”

Here we go again. When Democrats accuse him of being the Spoiler Redux, Nader replies with an anthimeria, which changes one part of speech, such as a noun (“landslide”), into another part of speech (“landsliding”).

The rumpled crusader maintains that that his campaign shouldn’t affect the outcome at all.  But it’ll jack up his ego like a pimped-out Corvair.

Figaro interviewed Nader in 2000, months before he denied Democrats a win in the crucial Florida balloting. When Figaro asked if someone put a gun to his head and told him to vote for either Gore or Bush, which he would choose, Nader answered without hesitation: “Bush.” Al Gore, he said, had “totally betrayed” his environmental stand. “If you want the parties to diverge from one another,” Nader continued, “have Bush win.”

Mission accomplished.

Snappy Answer:  “So you want to see them close down?”