Where’s Your Green Card?

Quote:  “What part of illegal does the Senate not understand?”  Rep. Brian Bilbray

Figure of Speech:  metallage (meh-TALL-uh-gee), the getting all medieval figure.  From the Greek, meaning “making a swap.”

The metallage takes a verb or adjective and uses it as the object of a sentence.  Rep. Bilbray, chairman of Congress’s Immigration Reform Caucus, gets all medieval on aliens by using the adjective “illegal” as an object.

He’s talking about ambitious legislation worked out between Senator Ted Kennedy, some congressional Republicans, and the White House.  The bill would provide a way for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship in America; they’d have to pay a $5,000 fine, and the head of the household would have to return to the home country first.  The legislation also toughens border security and makes it harder for companies to hire illegals.  And its chance of passage in its current form is slim to none.

Why?  Because the backers are trying to solve a problem (how to deal with 12 million invisible residents) while opponents are arguing about values.  (Illegals are bad and should be punished; or they’re stealing jobs from real Americans.)  The goal of values rhetoric isn’t to solve problems but to make us feel good about ourselves.

If Figaro is beginning to sound preachy, it’s because he’s right and everyone else is wrong.

Want to see how President Bush uses tribal language? Click here.

It's Time Somebody Got Smitten

Quote:  “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked.”  Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, speaking of 911.

Figure of Speech:  jeremiad (Jer-uh-MY-ad), the figure of godly payback.  Named after the Biblical prophet Jeremiah.

Jerry Falwell is dead.  The evangelical minister led a busy life as a voice that cried out against all the abominations America fell  into — sins like civil rights and public education.  He got some great press for attributing the September 11 terrorism to “the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, [and] People for the American Way.”

Even some of his evangelical allies thought the Rev had gone off the theological deep end.  But he was following a very old American tradition.  In seventeenth-century New England, Puritan ministers used the jeremiad to terrify their communities, blaming their ills on the sins the citizens had committed or permitted.

The word “jeremiad” itself is an eponym — a word named after a person.  Jeremiah was a prophet responsible for two of the most pessimistic books in the Bible, the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations.  (Ian Frazier’s side-splitting “Lamentations of the Father” is a brilliant spoof.)

New Englanders eventually tired of the jeremiad, dedicated themselves to full-time sinning, and became the modern-day Gomorrah that abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians call “Massachusetts.”

Snappy Answer:  “Terrorists will be glad to know they’re off the hook.”

You’re Such a Lovely Audience

Quote:  “Kubler regards fan interaction as an obligation that is cultural, almost ethical.”  Writer Clive Thompson in the Sunday New York Times Magazine .

 

Figure of Speech:  eunoia, disinterested good will.  From the Greek, meaning “well mind.”

It’s not “almost” ethical, Clive.  Rhetorically speaking, fan interaction is ethical.  It enhances one’s ethos, or public image.

If you want a group of people to follow you, make them believe you’re willing to sacrifice for them—that you’re disinterested, unbeholden to any interest other than the audience’s.  Rhetoricians call this benevolent strategy eunoia.  It’s the only term in English that contains all five vowels.  It’s also one of the essential characteristics of a persuasive ethos.

In our increasingly self-centered culture, we mistakenly use disinterest as a synonym for “uninterest.”  Thank the gods for one rock guitarist who instinctively knows the difference.  Tad Kubler, who plays with the rock group Hold Steady, has a page on MySpace.  He’s such a devoted blogger, answering messages personally, that the audience chants his MySpace screen name, “Koob,” at concerts.  Having “friended” him, they’re part of one big Koob tribe.

Blogs in general tend to be more of an ethical medium than a logical one — more tribal than analytical.  People desire a bond with the successful blogger at least as much as they want to learn from him.  Figarists, of course, are the exception that proves the rule; which makes you a member of a very exclusive tribe.

Snappy Answer:  “Ah, the virtuous rock star.”

For more on eunoia, see chapter 8 of Figaro’s book. 

Update on Monday, May 14, 2007 at 10:49AM by Figaro

One of the first emails replying to this post was from Figaro’s own wife, who pointed out that “facetious” has all the vowels—in order.  Figaro should have said that eunoia contained all the vowel PHONEMES—combinations of letters that form distinct sounds.

Little Style, Much Substance

Quote:  “David Halberstam.  Halberstam, that was what everybody called him (after all, it was his name).  They always said that what Halberstam needed was a good editor, his sentences ran on and on, he piled phrase upon phrase and clause upon clause, he used commas the way other men used periods.”  The New Republic, quoted in the Washington Post.

Figure of Speech:  mimesis, the figure of mimicry.  From the Greek, meaning “imitation.”

A great journalist died in a car crash recently.  Figaro once called him to see if he would write an essay about his love for baseball.  Halberstam immediately proposed a piece about a game he had watched 30 years before.  He described every detail over the phone, with obvious relish, apparently without notes.  We think that was the secret behind his famous energy.  It was fueled by minutiae — by the accumulation of facts into an undeniably credible story.

Alas, Halberstam’s writing reflected that passion all too well.  The New Republic lovingly lampooned his style in the very act of describing it.  This is an ironic example of a mimesis, in which the writer or orator imitates another speaker’s words, voice, or gestures.

The figure doesn’t have to lampoon its subject.  Hillary Clinton used a mimesis and ended up lampooning herself.  Mimicry is a dangerous weapon.  Watch where you point it.

Snappy Answer:  “Still, he was the best and the brightest.”

She Doesn’t Look a Day Over 200

Quote:  “Her Majesty did not appear to be amused.”  The Washington Post, after President Bush mistakenly suggested that Queen Elizabeth witnessed the American Revolution.

Figure of Speech:  litotes (lie-TOE-tees), the figure of ironic understatement.  From the Greek, meaning “meager.”

The Queen, Bush noted in a White House Rose Garden welcome, “helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17…”  He instantly corrected himself, saying “in 1976.”  Bush made a joke of it, saying the Queen gave him a look “only a mother could give a child.”  We’re not sure what he meant, but it probably didn’t make Her Majesty feel any younger.

The Washington Post doesn’t help matters by quoting (in journalese) Queen Victoria, who responded to an off-color joke by one of her grooms-in-waiting:   “We are not amused.”   It’s the most famous litotes in history — which isn’t saying a whole heck of a lot, to coin another litotes.

Nonetheless, it’s a wonderful figure to use if you want to sound royal.  Don’t bloviate.  Litoteate.

Snappy Answer:  “She was just trying to remember what happened in 1776.”

For more on the litotes, see page 219 of Figaro’s book.

Cannibalism in the Bible!

From Ask Figaro:

Dear Fig,
Kindly explain this statement in very simple terms.”The fool folds his hands together, and eats his own flesh”.

Thanks
Vichy


Dear Vich,

Ah, Ecclesiastes 4:5. Figaro loves Ecclesiastes best of all, not least because the Hebrew for Ecclesiastes, Qohelet, is best translated as “Orator.” It’s the most openly rhetorical of all the sacred books.

The fool you refer to is a man who shuns work (“folds his hands”) and ends up starving (“eats his own flesh”). This is a wonderful metaphor, and a very subtle form of metonomy.

The New International Bible, with its usual ham-handed translating, swaps the flesh-eating for “ruins himself.” Figaro vastly prefers cannibalistic figures.

Fig.