You Got a Pretty Mouth, Cousin Barack

Quote:  “There’s horse thieves and heroes in everybody’s line.” Genealogist Chip Hughes, interviewed in Slate.

Figure of Speech:  synecdoche (sin-EC-doe-kee), the generalizing trope.

Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are eighth cousins, according to the vice president’s wife, Lynne Cheney. The Chicago Sun-Times further reports that Obama happens to be an eleventh cousin of President Bush.

Big deal, say genealogists. Shimmy out far enough on the limb of your family tree, and you’ll find that you’re related to practically everyone. (We have credible evidence that Dick Cheney is a direct descendent of Loki, the Norse god of mischief and evil.)

Chip Hughes employs a rhythmic, alliterative synecdoche to downplay astonishment over the Cheney-Obama tie. The synecdoche —  a trope in which an individual or species represents a group or genus —  makes “horse thieves and heroes” stand for notable bad guys and good guys. The trope’s specificity lends enargeia, the before-your-very-eyes vividness that rhetors have sought for millennia.

Snappy Answer:  “Mix horse thieves and heroes, and you get politicians.”

Űberwitty!

Quote:  “Farëzerfallen.”  Ad for the German airline Lufthansa.

Figure of Speech:  soraismus (sor-AYS-mus), the foreignism.  From the Greek, meaning “pile on.”

In its latest ad campaign, Deutschland’s national airline employs a deliberate soraismus, a figure that mixes languages pretentiously.  Promoting “Eazenträvel,” Lufthansa shows its grasp of a fundamental linguistic principle:  German is funny (when it isn’t scary).

The company’s ad agency borrowed the device from the Katzenjammer Kids, the oldest surviving syndicated comic strip.  “No! You can’t vatch me fix der chimbley!” the Captain tells the two boys in a typical panel. It’s a laff-riot!

Most rhetoricians deem the soraismus a vice, and therefore outré, if you comprenday nous. But, as Shakespeare and Bill Clinton proved, vices can be hilarious. Figaro therefore attaches the soraismus label to the practice of foreignizing English terms, regardless of what the rhetorati say.

What about the current überfad of swapping “super” with the oh-so-Euro prefix? Figaro declares that soraismus strictly verboten.

Snappy Answer:  “That’s using the ol’ fährfignoggin!”

Share obnoxious foreignisms here.

Saint Al

Quote:  “The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”  Al Gore

Figure of Speech:  alloiosis (al-oy-OH-sis), the this-isn’t-that figure. From the Greek, meaning “difference.”

What do you give a politician who has everything? Al Gore gets a gold Nobel medal to display next to his Oscar — not to mention implied canonization as Patron Saint of the Earth.  (He’ll share the prize with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ). Donning his figurative high priest’s robes, he uses an alloisis, a figure that redefines an issue, to claim that the unbalanced Earth is not political, it’s moral.

Sure, it’s not cricket to bequeath a toxic waste site to one’s progeny. But moral purity and $40 million will buy you a wind farm. In posing climate change as a “spiritual challenge,” Gore shuts off any debate that leads to practical choices. Values are inarguable; sermonic language reinforces values, it doesn’t change them. Dealing with the climate crisis requires the practical language of politics. It means sleeping with strange, smelly bedfellows.

Besides, as an NPR reporter noted this morning, whenever a politician says something isn’t political — it’s political.

Snappy Answer: “And I suppose you’re the guy to lead all of humanity.”

Gimme the Keys, Genocider!

Quote: “I consider myself a friend of Turkey, but friends don’t let friends commit crimes against humanity.” Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey

Figure of Speech: eunoia (yoo-NOY-a), rhetorical selflessness.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution declaring Turkey’s 1915 slaughter of Armenians “genocide.” Istanbul is ready to blow its fez over the bill, while opponents note that Turkey is our only reliable ally in the Middle East.

Chill, Turkish people! grins Congressman Smith.  We’re just doing a friendly intervention!  Um, 92 years late.

Smith misuses the powerful tool of eunoia, claiming one merely wants to serve one’s audience or opponent.  Eunoia is all about disinterest — which, despite Figaro’s own computer dictionary, does not mean “apathy” or “unconcern.”  It means “free of special interests.”  (We’re sure that the large number of Armenian-Americans in New Jersey had nothing to do with Smith’s vote.)

But the real issue isn’t about preventing the Turks from slaughtering more Armenians.  It’s about values politics. Americans have lost the art of arguing deliberatively, with future-oriented discourse about real choices. We’re stuck on past-tense rhetoric of crime & punishment and the tribal rhetoric of Right & Wrong.  And so, instead of dealing with terrorism and Iraq, Congress boldly confronts the late Ottoman Empire.

And then let’s do something about the Athenian slaughter of the Melians in 416 B.C.  After all, the Greek are our friends, too.

Snappy Answer:  “With friends like you, who needs America?”

Rudy Rules Rhetorical Roost; Mitt Merely Moans

Quote:  “I led. He lagged.”  Rudolph Giuliani, in last night’s Republican debate.

Figure of Speech:  alliteration (a-lit-er-AY-tion), the first-letter repeater.

Giuliani claims he cut per capita taxes and spending as New York’s mayor while Mitt Romney let them increase when he was governor of Massachusetts.  Rudy bared his blade, rhetorically speaking, with a little alliteration, a figure of speech that repeats the first sound in successive or nearby words.  Figaro shies from its overuse, but this time the figure works.  That’s because Giuliani also wields the see-saw isocolon that Figaro described in his last entry.

Take heed, wannabe wits:  when you wish to emphasize a contrast, produce a pair of nearly identical clauses — the more similar, the better.  (“She says tomato.  I say tomahto.”)  Alliteration entwines the twinning.  (“She loved it.  I loathed it.”)

And what wit did Mitt emit to rebut Rudy?  The lame claim that the charge was “baloney” —  thus following a lively alliteration with a ponderous pork product.

Lagged, indeed.

Snappy Answer:  “I led. He lied.”

Annoy a Moderate. Make Stupid Bumper Stickers.

From Ask Figaro:

Hi,
There is a bumper sticker that reads, “Annoy a Liberal, Succeed, Be Happy.”  What kind of argument is that?  A fallacy? Thanks,
Diahn

Dear Diahn,

When I say tomato, do you say tomahto? I ask not just because of the way you spell your name. Like your annoying quotation, my question is an isocolon (Greek for “equal member”), a figure that repeats phrases or clauses of similar length. 

We won’t call a foul on the bumper sticker, because it’s within bounds to imply that liberals, egalitarian souls that they are, would resent a self-made fat cat.  But surely the right can do better than that.  How about “Annoy a Liberal, Inherit Money, Say You Earned It?”  No, that wouldn’t quite work either. “Annoy a Liberal, Shoot a Burglar” might be closer to the mark.  Figaro prefers, “Annoy a Liberal, Make a Bumper Sticker That Begins with ‘Annoy a Liberal.’”

Any other suggestions for annoying liberals and conservatives?

Fig.