Chill, Dude

Quote:  “WINDCHILL 35 BELOW: CHICAGO.”  Drudge Report.

Figure of Speech: hyperbole (hie-PER-bo-lee), the hype figure. From the Greek, meaning “excess.”

Figaro is on an amazing, spectacular exaggeration kick.  His last entry had to do with the blowup label called the auxesis.  Today he tackles the hyperbole, which has been frostbiting people throughout the country.

Although the wind chill trumpeted by meteorologists has been debunked by science, and means little in real life anyway, it continues to make terrific news.

What’s the difference between auxesis and hyperbole?  An auxesis consists of a single word or phrase used as a label — calling an abandoned trailer in Iraq a “weapon of mass destruction,” for instance.  Hyperbole is a more general term.  It can encompass whole arguments, or bogus science.

Snappy Answer:  “Wind Discovered in Chicago. Meteorologists Panic.”

It Holds Four Score Passengers

Quote:  “Flying Lincoln bedroom.”  Minority Whip Roy Blunt, in the Washington Times.

Figure of Speech:  auxesis (aux-EE-sis), the exaggeration label.  From the Greek, meaning “increase.”

Post-911 security rules require that government big shots such as Cabinet secretaries travel by military plane.  Which was no big deal until Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi requested a jet that could fly coast to coast without refueling.  The plane in question, a C-40, includes a “distinguished visitor compartment with sleep accommodations,” as the Pentagon puts it.

The Republicans smelled a juicy rhetorical rat, and they pounced.  “Pelosi One,” eponymmed Patrick McHenry, a Republican Congressman from North Carolina.  Roy Blunt’s rhetoric flew even higher with an auxesis that launched the Lincoln Bedroom — a dowdy White House guest room where, not coincidentally, President Clinton put up rich donors.

It’s a lovely auxesis, an irresistible figure of speech that gives something a name out of proportion to its nature.  The figure’s cleverness provides the spoonful of sugar that makes the hyperbole go down.

But no auxesis can take the sting from the real issue:  under new House rules, other members must use commercial airlines like the rest of us.  And what’s the point of serving the People if you have to actually sit with them?

Snappy Answer:  “Yeah, taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill.  Lobbyists should.”

May Cause Priapism Among Stand-Alone Systems

Quote:  “Connectile dysfunction.”  Superbowl ad for Sprint Mobile Broadband.

Figure of Speech:  paronomasia (pa-ra-no-MAY-sia), the near-pun.  From the Greek, meaning “rename alongside.”

Is it just Figaro, or were this year’s Super Bowl ads especially horrible?  Nearly all the “funny” ones entailed people falling off cliffs, suffering car accidents, or getting beat up.

Thank goodness for Sprint, which chooses sex over violence.  Droopy guy sits in an airport with his laptop in his lap while the voiceover says, “You know the feeling: you can’t take care of business the way others do.”  The ad uses a paronomasia, a play on words that’s not precisely a pun.  You could call it the parody figure, because it allows you to tell the audience what you’re making fun of.

We’re assuming Sprint intended another figure with its slogan, “Power Up.”  It’s called double entendre.

Snappy Answer:  “At least you didn’t use a certain former vice president. Now, that would have been doleful.”

Other figures that let you say two things at once.

The Republic Party for Which He Stands

Quote:  “I congratulate the Democrat majority.”  President Bush, in his recent State of the Union Address.

Figure of Speech:  apocope (a-PAH-co-pee), the end-biter.  From the Greek, meaning “snip off the end.”

Washington is still in a dither over the president’s substitution of “Democrat” for “Democratic.”  But Figarists will be pleased to know that Bush was employing a figure of speech, the apocope, which snips off the last part of a word.  Poets once used the figure to sound poetical — by replacing “often” with “oft,” for instance.  You can still hear the figure when people ask “what’s the diff?” or battle terrorism with “intel.”

Bush told NPR that his un-Democratic apocope was “an oversight, ” adding a Reaganesque cognitive malfunction:  “I didn’t even know I did it.”  (It reminds us of Charles Barkley’s complaint that his autobiography misquoted him.) But Bush did it on purpose! lament liberals. Nefarious code language! lecture linguists. 

Figaro thinks the president is just trying to even the rhetorical odds.  The Democratic Party has a rhetorical advantage over the Republican Party.  After all, who talks about bringing “Republican government” to the Mideast? The problem is, no one but the Republican right wing uses “Democrat Party,” which makes the device too visibly rhetorical; and Figaro has told Washington time and time again that the best rhetoric disguises itself.  So we object to the phrase not because it’s manipulative, but because it’s clumsy.

Snappy Answer:  “And we Democrats are thrilled to work with the radical right.”

Take My Planet…Please.

Quote: “What, in my background, equips me to deal with evil and bad men?”  Hillary Clinton, repeating a reporter’s question.

Figure of Speech: innuendo, the winking figure.  From the Latin, meaning “significant nod.”

Poor Hillary.  She tried to be funny, repeating a reporter’s question in a style that dripped with weird innuendo:  “What? In my background?  Equips me to deal with evil?  And bad?  Men?”

The innuendo is a form of irony, planting thoughts (usually negative) in an audience’s head.  In this case, the intended fall guy seems to have been Bill, though she denies it.  But the real victim is Hillary herself.  She’s trying to overcome her well-deserved reputation as the Mr. Spock of politics, more Vulcan than human, by injecting a little emotion.  The problem is, humor is a cool emotion, and Hillary’s ethos needs a little heating up.

Figaro’s advice:  find an occasion to get mad.  Voters didn’t take chuckling ol’ Ronald Reagan seriously until he got all hot about the use of a microphone before the New Hampshire primary.  (“I paid for that microphone!”) People saw he had some serious backbone.  It was the real beginning of his rise in the national polls.

A lot of people hate Hillary for the opposite reason:  she failed to get mad when her husband humiliated her in front of all the world.  Supporters say that proves her steadfast love for her husband.  But others think that just shows how craven she is — how cold and calculating and ambitious.  Get mad, Hillary, in the right way and at the right time, and more people will begin to think you’re presidential material.

Snappy Answer:  “Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.”

They Should at Least Wear Tights and a Cape

Thought you might like to see this exchange on Ask Figaro.

Dear Figaro,

As usual the president praised some new heroes in his State of the Union Address.

BUSH:  Three weeks ago, Wesley Autrey was waiting at a Harlem subway station with his two little girls, when he saw a man fall into the path of a train. With seconds to act, Wesley jumped onto the tracks, pulled the man into the space between the rails, and held him as the train passed right above their heads.  He insists he’s not a hero.  He says: “We’ve got guys and girls overseas dying for us to have our freedoms.  We have got to show each other some love.”  There is something wonderful about a country that produces a brave and humble man like Wesley Autrey.

What is the technical term for this digression?

Arie Vrolijk

Dear Arie,

While there are figures for interruptions within a sentence (APPOSITIO, PAREMBOLE), we don’t know of one that suits this sort of digression—other than “digression.”  That may be because there is little art to this presidential fad of naming heroes during State of the Union addresses, one that Reagan started and succeeding presidents have followed.

Increasingly, occupants of the White House avoid deliberative rhetoric—the language of politics and of decision-making—in favor of demonstrative rhetoric, which speaks of values and reinforces tribal identity.  The heroes stand for what is best in America.  (Though Bush also celebrates the creator of those ridiculous Baby Einstein videos, whose heroism escapes Figaro.)  Nothing wrong with extolling heroes’ virtues, but what do they have to do with Iraq, health care, or climate change?

And that, of course, is exactly the point.  Heroes allow the president to bask in their virtue, while distracting us from the issues at hand.

Fig.