Best Figure to Bring an Audience to Its Feet

Figaro is on tour, but he has not shirked his figurative duties. He’s written up the best figure for each of several useful purposes.

Today’s Figgy for Figure Most Likely to Cause a Standing Ovation goes to…

chiasmus (kee-AS-muss), the criss-cross figure. From the Greek letter chi, for “X.”

You think a figure can’t bring an audience to its feet? Watch John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. He coaxed thousands into the Peace Corps with “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

That’s a chiasmus, which takes a phrase or clause and repeats it in reverse.

“Don’t serve the time. Let the time serve you.” (Paris Hilton)
“It was a border that came over us. We didn’t come over the border.” (Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado)
“There comes a point where the absence of evidence does indeed become the evidence of absence.” (Senate Intelligence Committee report)
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” (Knut Rockne)

Notice that the chiasmus makes a great retort when you want to hold a mirror up to the other opinion — a very unflattering mirror.

Runners-Up:

anadiplosis (an-a-di-PLO-sis), the last-word first-word repetition.
anaphora (ann-AH-for-ah), the first-word repeater.

Best Figure for Snappy Answers

Figaro is on tour, but he has not shirked his figurative duties. He’s written up the best figure for each of several useful purposes.

Today’s winner for Most Retortable is…

antistasis (an-TIH-sta-sis), the repeat that changes a word’s meaning. From the Greek, meaning “opposing position.”

If you want to rhetorically flip an adversary, repeat her words in a way that ruins her meaning. That’s what the antistasis is for. It plays on a word or puts it in a different context.

“You said you wanted it in the worst way. Well, you’re getting it in the worst way.”
“I wasted time and now time doth waste me.” (Shakespeare)
“I don’t buy the ‘fog of war’ defense. It was a fog of bureaucracy.” (Michael Brown, former FEMA head)
“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” (Benjamin Franklin)

The most fun kind of antistasis plays on words. After all, as Hamlet said, “The play’s the thing.”

Runners-Up:

ennoia (en-NOY-a), the figure of faint praise.
synchoresis (sin-cho-REE-sis), conceding a point to make a stronger one.

Best Figure for Getting a Laugh

Figaro is heading on a tour, but he has not shirked his figurative duties. For the next few entries, he’ll name the best figure for each of several useful purposes.

Today’s winner for Figure Most Likely to Raise a Yuk is:

Paraprosdokian (pa-ra-proze-DOKE-ian), the surprise ending.

The paraprosdokian’s impossible-to-pronounce name makes it one of the most underrated figures. But the funniest people in history knew how to wield it. The figure starts with ordinary language or a cliché, and then smacks the audience upside the head with a different ending.

“She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and forgot to say when.” (P.G. Wodehouse)
“It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead.” (Rose Macaulay)
“To commit suicide in Buffalo would be redundant.” (Harold Arlen)
“I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.” (Will Rogers)
“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.” (Oscar Wilde)

Though people avoid clichés like the plague, they’re a great resource — they make the rhetorical world go round — but only if you transform them with your instant wit. Give your next cliché a paraprosdokian twist, and the world will be your oyster. Whether you like oysters or not.

Runners-Up:

Tasis (TAY-sis)
The delectable figure.

Anthimeria (an-thih-MARE-ee-uh)
The verbing figure.

Frasier for President!

From Ask Figaro:

 This guy says almost the exact same thing that’s in your book, and I think it’s called decorum.
Avi

Dear Avi,

The blog you refer to quotes a friend asking why the Democrats keep nominating Frasier Crane. Why doesn’t the party of “the people” run people who talk like, well, people?

You’re right in thinking this is all about decorum—not the teacup-and-lace variety, but the rhetorical kind. It’s from the Latin word for “fitness.” Decorum is all about fitting in. Through your words, gestures, and appearance, you make the audience believe you’re one of them.

George W. Bush, a millionaire Yale graduate who vacations at the family compound in Maine, sounds much more like a good ol’ American than midwesterners like Hillary and Barack. The Dems’ main problem: they’re not decorous enough.

Fig.

He Just Cornered the Cat Vote

Quote:  “We will not hand any Kurdish man to Turkey, even a Kurdish cat.” Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, quoted in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  adynata (a-din-AH-ta), the last-people-on-earth figure.  From the Greek, meaning “without power.”

Kurdish militants ambushed Turkish soldiers a few miles from the border with Iraq. Now Turkey is threatening to send its army across the border, and it’s demanding that Iraq capture the Kurdish militant leaders and extradite them to Istanbul.

Instead of a mere “No way, Dude,” President Talabani retorts with a fine adynata — a figure of thought that refuses a proposition by positing an absurdly desperate or favorable hypothetical example. A boy in high school might hear the adynata for the first time when he asks a girl for a date:  “Even if you and I were the last people on earth,” she answers, “and the survival of the species depended on us, I still wouldn’t go out with you.” (For another example, involving a naked research assistant and a crate of whippets, click here.)

You can understand why girls used the adynata on young Figaro. But why is the Iraqi chief of state talking about Kurdish cats? Because he’s in a tight spot, politically. Iraqis are not keen on having yet another army invade them. On the other hand, Talabani’s entire political base consists of Kurds. He’s talking super tough while quietly encouraging some backroom diplomacy.

Rhetorical Lesson of the Day: When a politician spins hard one way, watch him run in the opposite direction.

Snappy Answer:  “We’ll trade you five Turkish cats for one Kurdish militant.”

He’s Really a Robot Controlled by Donny Osmond

Quote:  “His teeth are on message, and no hair grows without a plan and a briefing.”  John Dickerson in Slate.

Figure of Speech:  anthropomorphism (an-thro-po-MOR-phism), the personification figure. From the Greek, meaning “turning human.”

Figaro’s Rhetorical Rule No. 1:  Don’t let your rhetoric show. If Mitt Romney wins in 2008, he’ll be the most presidential-looking president since Warren Harding.  But looking the part isn’t always rhetorically correct; a strong chin and perfect grooming can make a candidate look too slick, especially if he lacks Reaganesque ideological passion.

John Dickerson, Slate’s political pundit, showcases Romney’s slickness with a spot-on anthropomorphism, a figure that lends human characteristics to inhuman objects or beings. (Figaro hates calling a ship a “she,” for instance. Click here to offer your most annoying anthropomorphisms.) Dickerson deftly uses political jargon (“on message”) to politicize Mitt’s whitened and coiffed charms, and he throws in a double negative (“no hair grows without…”) to imply zero tolerance for the non-camera-ready.

So what should Romney do: stand in front of a wind machine in his next ad? Not necessarily. The self-conscious flaw can look slick, too. This is why sensible people don’t run for the presidency. As Mitt himself might say, you’re darned if you do and darned if you don’t.

Snappy Answer:  “But were those eyebrows properly focus-grouped?”