Dead to Lights

Quote:  “Washington today is a place where good ideas go to die.”  Barack Obama.

Figure of Speech: snowclone (SNOW-clone), the retrofitted cliché. From the old saw about Eskimos knowing 200 words for snow. First proposed on the blog agoraphilia and promoted on the highly influential Language Log.

Hillary says she offers solutions, not speeches. Barack fires back a neatly packed snowclone, a figure that takes an overused expression and applies it to something new. A Google search produces a whole pile of snowclones: “where cathedrals go to die,” “where computers go to die,” even “where continents go to die. (The original expression, “where elephants go to die,” refers to the myth that the beasts had a secret place to rest in peace.)

Obama’s snowclone works for him politically, though. While Hillary tries to label Barack as a mere windbag, he makes her look like a Washington insider and a thrill-killing pessimist.

Well-played, sir.

Snappy Answer:  “They must be pretty sick, huh?”

Smoke-Filled Roon

Quote: “I am not a big believer in smoke-filled rooms.”  Minnesota State Senator Amy Klobuchar, in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech: metonymy (meh-TON-ih-mee), the scale-changing figure. From the Greek, meaning “name change.”

Who would disagree with Senator Klobuchar? Is anyone for smoke-filled rooms? But hazy as it is, the smoke-filled room clearly demonstrates the power of figures. It takes a political concept out of thin air and obscures it with sheer rhetoric.

Our dusky room is a metonymy, a figure that takes a part of something and makes it represent the whole (White House for the presidency, the throne for grouchy old queens). The metonymy breathes poetry into our daily speech; but when we internalize it, the figure can suck the wind out of rational thought.

Senator Klobuchar wants the Democratic primaries, and not the super delegates at the convention, to determine the party’s presidential candidate. But party hacks in smoke-filled rooms produced an Abraham Lincoln.

Imagine if the senator had said, “I’m not a big believer in knowledgeable political activists determining who would be the best, most winnable candidate.” That makes the smoke-filled room sound a lot healthier, doesn’t it?

Snappy Answer:  “Do Democrats smoke?”

It's My Party, I'll Deny If I Want To

Quote:  “This is her campaign, her presidency and her decisions.” Bill Clinton.

Figure of Speech: anaphora (an-AH-phor-a), the first-word repeater. From the Greek, meaning “carrying back.”

With husbands like Bill, who needs, um, the White House? His disingenuous attacks on Barack Obama are doing Senator Clinton more harm than good. Surveys of voters in the most recent primaries show that Bill’s big mouth is turning people against Hillary.

So has he agreed to shut up? Hardly. But his neat anaphora — a figure that repeats the first word of succeeding clauses or phrases —  implies he’ll move the big ol’ shadow that has been darkening his wife’s ethos.

Snappy Answer:  “We hope she made you say that.”

Dude! Want to Smoke Some Mob?

Quote:  “We like to think that it’s a vestige of the past. It’s not. It is as unrelenting as weeds that continue to sprout in the cracks of society.”  Andrew Cuomo, New York’s attorney general, speaking of organized crime.

Figure of Speech: catachresis (cat-a-KREE-sis), the metaphor gone wild. From the Greek, meaning “bad use.”

Andrew Cuomo is smart, ambitious, and owns great genes (his dad, Mario, was one of the great political speakers of his generation). Plus he says neat-sounding stuff about the mob. Note that he uses “We like to think” rather than “Some morons think,” as many of his fellow New Yorkers might put it.

But then he gets to the weeds sprouting in the cracks of society. Where Figaro comes from, weeds sprout through the cracks of sidewalks, or in the back garden of the pothead down the road. Not society.

Cuomo commits a mistake that Figaro sees all the time in publishing: forgetting halfway through a metaphor or simile that one is being metaphorical. If he had said, “It is as unrelenting as weeds; it continues to sprout in the cracks of society,” then the Mob would serve its proper weedy role in the figure. But he didn’t, so chalk one figurative demerit for Cuomo.

To quote Michael Corleone, “Where the hell does it end?”

Snappy Answer:  “And what are you, herbicide?”

And the Governor Would Mispronounce Him

Quote: “If Barack Obama were a state, he’d be California.” Maria Shriver.

Figure of Speech:  antapodosis (an-ta-PO-do-sis), the extended analogy. From the Greek, meaning “giving back.”

The Kennedy royal family is backing the most Kennedyesque of current candidates, Barack Obama. The latest Kennedy to make the endorsement is Maria Shriver, whose husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, backs aging manly-man John McCain.

Shriver goes all out in her Obama speech, using one of the more elaborate figures. The antapodosis is the DNA of similes, matching similarities like genes. “I mean think about it,” says Shriver of the Obama-California convergence. “Diverse. Open. Smart. Independent. Bucks tradition. Innovative. Inspiring. Dreamer. Leader.”

If Shriver were a state, she’d be Massachusetts. Expensive. Pretentious. Talkative. Pretty. Liberal. Unintentionally funny.

Snappy Answer:  “You mean his inhabitants would leave for Oregon and Montana?”

Smackdown!

Quote:  “I know you think it’s crazy, but I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight.”  Bill Clinton

Figure of Speech: parrhesia (pa-RAY-sia), the excuse- my- French- figure. From the Greek, meaning “beyond speech.”

Bill Clinton has been hitting Barack Obama below the belt, and Hillary’s own staffers claim with their very most sincere faces that they’ve asked Bill please to tone it down.  (We’re equally sure that George W. Bush asks Dick Cheney to play nice.)

Now the former president, a man who seems unaware that he is a former president, uses a parrhesia to distance himself from his own attacks. The figure warns the audience that the speaker is about to say something perfectly frank or contrary to received wisdom.

This makes the parrhesia an ideal figure for when you want to say something disingenuous. “Call me crazy,” chuckles Bill as he knees Barack in the groin. “I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight,” he says, rabbit-punching his wife’s opponent to the mat.

We’re glad someone’s having fun around here.

Snappy Answer:  “I kind of like former presidents to act, like, dignified.”