Darwin's Trick

Quote:  “We learn thus that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.”  Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man.

Figure of Speech:  epiphonema (eh-pih-fo-NEE-ma), the memorable summary.  From the Greek, meaning “sound out upon.”  Also reluctant conclusion, a figure of thought that conveys disinterest.

(Yes, Figaro just did that figure, but he feels compelled to do it again. )

In the current New Yorker, Adam Gopnik says today’s quote “may be the single most explosive sentence in English.”  Darwin used it to kick the religious foundations out from under his own pious Victorian society.  Yet the bearded old naturalist was buried with full honors in Westminster Abbey.   How did he win a world-changing argument and emerge unscathed?

Now, pay attention, scientists.  Your clumsy defense of evolution against the religious right could use some help from Uncle Charles.  When it came time to introduce his fellow humans to their hairy ancestors, Darwin relied on a classical education steeped in the rhetoric of Cicero and Aristotle.  Unlike today’s scientists, Darwin doesn’t state a hypothesis and then attempt to prove it.  Instead, he saves his conclusion for the last.  Twenty chapters of facts lead to a rhetorical punchline called an epiphonema. 

Just as important, Darwin sounds not the least bit gleeful in relaying his disturbing news.   He  doesn’t say, “The foregoing evidence proves my point.”  He says, “We learn thus…”  He and his audience receive the shocking information together.  Alas, his tone says.  The facts give us no choice.  Our forebears (sigh) were monkeys.

Rhetorical lesson for the day:   You are more likely to win an argument when you don’t appear to win it.

Snappy Answer:  “Thank God we live in the New World.”

Sounds Better Than "Army Overcommitted."

Quote:  “Army Strong.”  New ad slogan for the U.S. Army.

Figure of Speech:  anthimeria (an-thih-MER-ia), the verbing figure.  From the Greek, meaning “part switch.”

Madison Avenue has discovered one of Figaro’s faves, the verbing figure.  It re-tasks parts of speech.  A noun or adjective gets dragooned into a verb, a verb becomes a noun or adjective, or —  in the Army’s case — a noun finds itself reassigned to adverb duty.

Figaro likes the new slogan; it makes more sense than the old solipsistic motto, “Army of One.”  But we wonder why the Army would agree to change from proper noun to adverb.  Isn’t that a demotion?

Or is “Army Strong” a tarzanism?  You know, as in “Army strong.  Enemy weak.”

Actually, that sounds less like Tarzan and more like a certain Commander in Chief.  Stay strong, my people.

Snappy Answer:  “Sleevy Long.”

And Look at the Mess the Elephants Are Making

Quote:  “All a big tent strategy seems to be doing is attracting a bunch of clowns.”  Tom McClusky, chief lobbyist for the Family Research Council, a Christianist group, in the L.A. Times.

Figure of Speech:  literal cliché, a figure of thought that reduces an idiom to absurdity.

The Christian right is talking about a “pink purge” of gay Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the White House.  (Pink purge, actually, is a synecdoche. Don’t we just love figurative politicians?)

An evangelical lobbyist justifies this not-really-Stalinist policy with one of Figaro’s favorite rhetorical devices.  If you want to sound witty, do what Mr. McClusky does:  take a cliché literally.

Opponent: Don’t pour the baby out with the bathwater.

You: No, let’s just pull the plug.

By responding literally to a cliche like that, you seem to agree with your opponent even while you contradict him.  It’s a kind of argument ju-jitsu.   In this case, the Christianists want to throw out grown Republicans, not babies.  But they’re still draining the tub.

Snappy Answer:  “Maybe the problem is the ringmaster.”

Can We Elect Him Grand Vizier?

Quote:  “Well, that warm welcome is almost enough to make me want to run for office again.  Almost.”  Vice President Cheney, fundraising in Topeka, Kansas.

Figure of Speech: antistasis (an-TIS-ta-sis), a repetition that changes a word’s meaning.  From the Greek, meaning “opposite stance.”

With approval ratings slightly below Darth Vader’s, Dick Cheney is forced to travel deep into the heartland to feel the love.  He reciprocates with an antistasis, which repeats a word in a way that flips its meaning.  The result can be mildly funny (very mildly, in Cheney’s case) or devastatingly persuasive.

The first “almost” sounds as if he is actually thinking of running for office again, presumably in an undisclosed location.  The second “almost” cancels out the first. Translation: “No [gerund deleted] way.”

No one can growl a good figure like Dick Cheney.

Snappy Answer:  “Just tell Capitol Hill to make Halliburton a congressional district.”

Is That Why Popeye Eats Out of a Can?

Quote:  “In effect, we’re washing the whole nation’s salad in one big sink.”  Michael Pollan in the Sunday New York Times Magazine.

Figure of Speech:  epiphonema (eh-pih-fo-NEE-ma), the memorable summary.  From the Greek, meaning “sound out upon.”

Last month, 200 Americans got sick from E. coli bacteria in packaged raw spinach.  Michael Pollan explains why in a rousing figure of thought that sums up an issue in a memorable way.  The epiphonema usually follows a detailed argument, and it does in Pollan’s case.  “The way we farm and the way we process our food, both of which have been industrialized and centralized over the last few decades, are endangering our health,” he says.

Spinach is a good example.  The factory where the bacteria originated washes 26 million salad servings each week, mixing greens gathered from a variety of sources.  One dirty leaf can spoil the whole bunch.

Figaro prefers to buy his greens from farmers he knows personally.  That way he can show up if he gets sick.  And no one wants to see Figaro sick.

Snappy Answer:  “That must give Paul Newman delusions of grandeur.”

But His Colon Is the Decider

Quote: “911 changed everything — into punctuation.” Jon Stewart.

Figure of Speech: paraprosdokian (pa-ra-prose-dokian), the surprise-ending figure.

“I like to tell people,” says President Bush, “when the final history is written on Iraq, it’ll look just like a comma.”  Stewart riffs off that strange line with a paraprosdokian, a figure that takes a cliché and sticks on a surprise ending.

P.G. Wodehouse was a master of it.  “She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes,” he said, “and forgot to say when.”  Another great paraprosodkianist was Dame Rose Macaulay”  “It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead,” she snarked once.

Once you get the knack for this, you can become an instant wit — like Oscar Wilde, who upon reading Dickens’ Little Curiosity Shop said one “had to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.”

That’s the same tragic feeling Figaro has when he hears Mr. Bush speak.

Snappy Answer:  “What do you mean by ‘final’?”