So, Duh

Quote:  “Diet and light brands are actually health and wellness brands.” Coca-Cola CEO Neville Isdell, in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech: syncrisis (SIN-crih-sis), the not- that- but- this figure.  From the Greek, meaning “to compare.”

Get ready for some wholesome new drinks from Coke and Pepsi.  Called “sparkling beverages,” they’re a down-home mix of artificial flavorings and sweeteners, together with a salubrious dollop of carbon dioxide.  Their makers will lovingly fortify these diet colas — sorry, sparkling beverages — with vitamins and minerals.  Mm-mm!

The Coke head (the head of Coke, we mean) already thinks diet colas are part of a healthy lifestyle.  He expresses that happy thought in a syncrisis, a re-labeling figure that helps you frame an issue.  It’s a tricky figure, though, because repeating the old terms tends to reinforce them in the audience’s heads.  If Mr. Isdell doesn’t want people to associate diet colas with the word “diet,” he shouldn’t mention the word at all.

Snappy Answer:  “So is Diet Coke all you drink?”

She's Not Talking Straight

Quote:  “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”  Ann Coulter, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Figure of Speech:  apophasis (a-PAH-pha-sis), the deny you’re saying it figure. From the Greek, meaning “denial.”

Ann Coulter, the right’s blondest wing, favors the kind of humor that bullies liked to use against Figaro in the playground.  “Teacher says I’m not allowed to say ‘faggot’, but that’s what you are.”  This approach endears Coulter to testosterone-challenged conservatives.   She lends them vicarious cojones.

Despite playground rumors to the contrary, Figaro admires Coulter’s figure — her apophasis figure, that is.   It allows her to take a swing at “political correctness” while calling Edwards a naughty name.  And it coyly lets her step back from her own crude smear.

Figaro just loves high-level political discourse.

Snappy Answer:  “That’s because you may not be a lesbian.”

The Intellectual’s Incentive Program

Quote:  “All right, give me your address and I’ll send you a copy.  Plus five bucks.  No, forget the five…forget the free copy.”  Jay Heinrichs, in the “Buy the Book” portion of thankyouforarguing.com (hi-res version).

Figure of Speech:  epergesis (eh-per-GEE-sis), the self-correcting figure.  From the Greek, meaning “explanation.”

Figaro will find shame in another day or two.  Meanwhile, allow him to steer you to his new website, where users learn to persuade a tough customer named Mike.  This fellow Heinrichs’ argument collapses in a heap and he ends up begging the user to buy his book.  Truly pathetic.

Nice figure of speech, though.  First, Heinrichs offers a free copy and five bucks.  Then he takes them back in an epergesis, a figure in which you edit yourself out loud.  Correcting yourself can also make your audience believe you have a passion for fairness and accuracy even while you pile on the accusations.  Look at these two ways of abusing a lover.

Without the epergesis:  I’ve never been so embarrassed as I was watching you at the party last night.
With the epergesis: I never was so embarrassed as I was last night.  Actually, I have been that embarrassed — the last time we went a party together.

Judging by his website, Heinrichs clearly knows a thing or two about embarrassment.

Snappy Answer:  “How about I pay you not to send me a copy?”

Figure of Speech: Shameless Plea

  My dear Figarist,

I thought you’d like to know that today is the day that Random House publishes my book, Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion. You’ll find it here.  If you click on the Amazon link, you can buy it for less than $12.

If you’re even thinking of doing so, please try to do it today. An impressive showing will inspire the publisher, further the noble cause of rhetoric, and show my wife that countless hours spent writing a figures blog haven’t been wasted.

Would you do that for Figaro? Plus buy 50 more copies for your friends and relatives and students and book group and H.R. director and Member of Congress? All right, then, do it for yourself:

1. Taking your love of words, you’ll tap into their persuasive power and mold people’s minds to your will, to paraphrase John Quincy Adams. (He really could be scary at times.)
2. You’ll learn how Aristotle and Cicero can make you more eloquent.
3. Plus you’ll find an assortment of popular-culture dodges, including the Eddie Haskell Ploy, Enimen’s Rules of Decorum, the Belushi Paradigm, Stalin’s Timing Secret, and the Yoda Technique.
4. If you’re a teacher, I’d be glad to conduct a speakerphone conference with your class.
   

Thank You for Arguing comes with Figaro’s personal guarantee. If you’re not wholly satisfied, I will write you a highly figured letter of apology.

With heartfelt thanks,
Figaro

But Seriously.

Quote:  “…it’s humorless save when it’s laughable.”   Review of the film Number 23 in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  anesis (AN-eh-sis), the deflating figure.  From the Greek, meaning “abatement.”

Figaro doesn’t mean to pick on Jim Carrey, but the Times’ review of his latest movie gives us a chance to talk about a really first-rate figure of irony. 

The anesis starts with a thought and tacks on a deflating phrase, clause or sentence.   The result is interesting:  instead of letting the air out of that thought, the anesis ironically inflates it.   The reviewer could have said, “The movie is grim and badly done.”  Instead, he piled an anesis on top of an insult.

The figure works best when it gives the appearance of conceding a point.  In Ask Figaro, our friend Michael at AmericanRhetoric.com offered this classic example from John F. Kennedy.  JFK conceded that the space budget had tripled in one year to $400 million — “a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year.”   Smokin’!

Snappy Answer:  “And Carrey is a fine comedian, especially when he’s trying to act.”

Carrey’s Got a Brand New Bag

Quote:  “I don’t want to pick scripts to keep me in the statusphere.” Actor Jim Carrey in Time.

Figure of Speech:  portmanteau (port-man-TOW), the hybrid word.

Jim Carrey no longer makes $20 million a picture, and not because his characters tend to be annoying, you see.  It’s because he takes chances.  “You have to take the plunge to expose your true self,” he says, mixing metaphors (unless he means to depict himself losing his swim trunks).  His true self would rather take a dive than soar to the statusphere.  That’s a perfect portmanteau, a neologism that smooshes two words together and combines their meanings. 

Originally,  a portmanteau carried a nobleman’s luggage.  Later the word referred to a bag  slung onto a horse, which evolved into a suitcase that opens like a book.  Then Lewis Carroll analogized it.  In Through the Looking-Glass, Humpty Dumpty explains that slithy combines lithe and slimy, mimsy hybridizes miserable and flimsy, and so on.  “You see it’s like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

Carrey’s statusphere combines status and stratosphere, of course.  (The wimpy copy editor at Time spoiled it by inserting a hyphen between the syllables, a punctilio up with which Figaro will not put.)  Other recent portmanteaux:  glitterati, any scandal ending in “gate,” spork, biopic, cyborg, animatronics… Figaro welcomes more neo-portmanteaux.

Snappy Answer:  “You’re a walking portmanteau yourself.  Which makes you a Carreyall.”