The Show Moved Me -- Far from the Television

Quote:  “Having watched an advance DVD of the first three hours, I can offer a mini-review:  two thumbs up.  Up my own eye sockets.”  Seth Stevenson in Slate.

Figure of Speech:  paraprosdokian (para-prose-DOKE-ian), the surprise-ending figure.

“The Starter Wife,” a mini-series on the USA Network, is about a 40-something woman who gets dumped.  Seth Stevenson is an admitted man, and therefore completely unqualified to review a middle-age chick flick.  As if to emphasize his Y chromosome, he pulls a rhetorical Three Stooges move with a paraprosdokian. The figure hits the audience with an unexpected ending to a series, phrase, or cliché.

It’s not a hard figure to pull off.  Just take a cliché and twist the ending.  The writer Rose Macaulay was a master of paraprosdokian.  “It was a book to kill time,” she wrote, “for those who like it better dead.”

Snappy Answer:  “Nyuck, nyuck.” 

For more cool ways to twist a cliché, see page 213 of Figaro’s book.

Figaro Beats His Son!

Figaro will spare you the chore of reading him this morning.  Instead, please hear his rhetorical commentary which ran last night on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”  Not to brag or anything (apophasis), but it’s already on the network’s most-emailed list.  Please let us know what you think—add a comment to this entry.

Yrs,
Fig.

Click here to listen. 

We’re Merismized

Quote:  The “cool, carefully considered, methodical, prolonged and repeated subjection of captives to physical torment, and the accompanying psychological terror, is immoral.”  Philip D. Zelikow, executive director of the 911 Commission, quoted in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  merismus (mer-IS-mus), the distribution figure.  From the Greek, meaning “part.”  Also called a merism (MER-ism) in English.

Groucho Marx’s quip that “military intelligence” is a contradiction in terms may have been unfair, at least when he made it.  During World War II, highly trained interrogators educed crucial information German and Japanese prisoners without torture—also known as “harsh techniques” in White House-ease.  The Intelligence Science Board, a group of experts advising government agencies, has issued a review of current methods and concluded that they’re less effective than the old WWII methods.

The 911 Commission’s Philip Zelikow says they’re also just plain wrong.  Zelikow, who edited the law review at the University of Houston, offers a lawyerly definition of—not torture, exactly, but it’s clear what he’s talking about.  America does not torture people.  We’re not that kind of country. 

His rhetorical device, the merism, takes a concept like “cold-blooded” and names its constituent parts instead. The Biblical God merismizes himself as “Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.”  Use the merism as a subtle form of hyperbole; instead of telling the boss you worked on Saturday, throw him a merism:  “I worked from dawn till dusk.”

But don’t say it was torture.

Snappy Answer:  “Carefully considered? At least that’s a start.”

What the Well-Dressed Terrorist Is Wearing

Quote: “They are just terrorists in suits.”  Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, after the Israeli military arrested the Palestinian education minister along with two mayors and 30 other officials.

Figure of Speech: tapinosis (tap-in-O-sis), the abusive shrinking figure.  From the Greek, meaning “demeaning.”

The officials in question are members of Hamas, a group that believes Israel should not exist.  The awkward thing is that these officials were duly elected.  Israel’s No. 2 military man takes care of that problem rhetorically, with a tapinosis.  A form of meiosis, the tapinosis abuses a person or thing by making it seem smaller.  These aren’t statesmen and women, they’re terrorists in statesmen’s clothing.

It’s a powerful figure, that tapinosis — a kind of shrinking gun.  Be careful where you aim it.

Snappy Answer:  “And you’re just a suit.”

Line? What Line?

Quote:  “I believe I crossed the line, but I didn’t mean to.”  Monica Goodling, former Justice Department liaison to the White House.

Figure of Speech:  dicaeologia (di-kay-o-LO-gia), the figure of excuse.  From the Greek, meaning “defensive argument.”

“Did you break the law?” a representative asked Goodling, who was granted immunity for her congressional testimony on the firing of U.S. Attorneys.  Her answer is a pretty good example of the dicaeologia, the short and sweet excuse.

This figure of thought usually comes into play when the facts of the case and the definition of the terms are going against you.  Yes, I did it.  Yes, it’s a crime.  But I had to!  Or, in Goodling’s case, “I didn’t mean to!”

This excuse rarely works when a child uses it on a parent.  But then, parents rarely grant immunity.

Snappy Answer:  “Does that explain Iraq, too?”

The President Wants the Wish Bone

We just received this question on Ask Figaro:

Dear Fig.,
What does “turn turkey” mean, and what are its origins?
Meg

Dear Meg,

To turn turkey means to switch sides.  This idiom is almost certainly a corruption of the phrase “to turn Turk.”  Back in the 16th and early 17th centuries, “Turk” was a common English name for a Moslem.  A Christian who converted to Islam “turned Turk.”  (Shakespeare’s Hamlet worries that his fortunes might “turn Turk with me.”)

Figaro has sometimes heard “turn Turkey” in the context of retreating in a cowardly fashion.  As he writes, he looks out onto a meadow with a flock of wild turkeys.  He can tell when someone is approaching his writing cabin, because the turkeys will turn and hightail it out of there.

The White House would say that withdrawing from Iraq would be turning turkey.  But what if one stayed and converted to Islam?  Would that be a turkey done to a turn?

Figaro is getting dizzy.

Yrs,
Fig.

Do cool things with cliches and idioms!  Turn to page 213 of Figaro’s book.