Hurricane Ka-Ching

Quote:  “The blatant fraud, the audacity of the schemes, the scale of the waste — it is just breathtaking.” Senator Susan Collins.

Figure of Speech: anacoluthon (an-a-co-LU-thon), the sidetrack figure.

Americans paid a fraud tax of $2 billion — 6% of federal funds allocated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The New York Times notes that the normal rate of fraud for this sort of thing is 1 to 2%.  So Senator Collins, a Republican from Maine, uses an anacoluthon (“out of order”) to express her shock.

Despite its unpronounceable name (damn those Greeks for naming everything in, well, Greek), the anacoluthon is one of the more common figures.  It interrupts the usual grammatical or syntactical flow  in order to zero in on a topic.  Newscasters use the figure all the time — “Alligators in the sewers: fact or urban myth?”

Fraud, audacity and scale — let them sink in before you make your point.  A linguistic pause that refreshes. 

Snappy Answer:  “In Congress, that would be called ‘reform.’”

Flag Be With You

Quote:  “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.” Proposed constitutional amendment.

Figure of Speech: gesture.

Someday, gestures like burning the flag, spitting on it — and, presumably, wearing it as a bikini on a flabby, bikini-desecrating body — could land you in prison.

Cicero, the great Roman orator, said that voice and gesture are the keys to delivering speech.  The power of the gesture lies behind the proposed flag amendment, passed by two-thirds of the House of Representatives and due for a close vote in the Senate.  

To desecrate means literally to “make unholy,”  so the amendment would consecrate the flag, making it America’s first constitutionally sacred object.  Will future activist judges require us to worship it?  Still, we’re pleased that Congress has paused from its chief mission — taking dictation from lobbyists — to do its bit for freedom and liberty.  As any parent knows, banning an obscene gesture gives it great rhetorical potency. 

At last, America’s legions of flag-burning hobbyists have something to celebrate.

Snappy Answer:  “And Congress shall retain the power to desecrate the Constitution.”

Makes You Want to Boot Them

Quote: “Hello, I’m a Mac.”
“And I’m a PC.”
New Macintosh ad campaign.

Figure of Speech:  personification, or prosopopoeia (pro-so-po-PEE-a), the humanizer.

Did you ever have to play a vegetable when you were a kid? Apple’s new ad campaign uses the same rhetorical device, which the ancients called prosopopoeia (“make human”).

In the Apple ads, a young, hip, rather smug guy plays a Macintosh, while a soft-bellied nerd plays the PC.  The PC sneezes from a virus, freezes up mid-sentence, and can’t communicate with the pretty young Camera from Japan.  The Mac has no such problems.

The campaign is timed to head off Microsoft’s new operating system, Vista, which features Mac-like whistles and bells.  To turn the argument away from the relative value of a PC, the ad agency uses Ethos, argument by character.  Aristotle said Ethos is the most persuasive of all the appeals — more than emotion, even more than logic.

There’s only one flaw in the ads: the PC seems more accessible.

Snappy Answer:  “And I’m a little teapot. Can we talk computers now?”

Nobly Battling Congress's Al Qaeda Wing

Quote:  “It is time to stand up and vote.  Is it Al Qaeda, or is it America?” Congressman Charlie Norwood of Georgia.

Figure of Speech:  antithesis (an-TIH-the-sis), the contrast.

The Republicans are sponsoring a symbolic resolution that supports the war in Iraq.  It’s time to take a stand, says the right’s wingman, Charlie Norwood.  He sums up the debate in an antithesis (“anti-thought”):  If you think the war in Iraq was a mistake, you’re for Al Qaeda. If you want our troops to stay in Iraq, you’re for America.

Never mind that Al Qaeda didn’t show up in Iraq until after we invaded it.  Never mind that most Americans think the invasion was a mistake — making a majority of us terrorist sympathizers in Norwood’s book.

It shows you the power of the antithesis, a figure that presents contrasting views side by side.  The antithesis weighs black against white, making you look decisive.  And Norwood knows that voters tend to favor bad decision-making over indecisiveness.

Which puts the Republicans at a decided advantage.

Snappy Answer:  “Is that a rhetorical question, or do you find it hard to tell the difference?”

It's Your Turn to Change the Tantrum

Quote:  “Many countries collectively agree … that children are a tantrum wrapped in a diaper and not worth the trouble.”  Emily Yoffee in Slate.

Figure of Speech:  tapinosis (tap-in-O-sis), the belittler.

Emily Yoffee had the nerve to write that childless women might consider bearing children — that they might actually like it.  Many readers took her advice as an insult of their lifestyle.  One called Yoffee a “mindless breeder,” a tapinosis in its own right.   She uses a tapinosis of her own to sum up what seems to be a First World attitude.

The tapinosis (“humiliation”) is an artful form of name-calling.  Similar to a meiosis, it uses a belittling phrase in place of the person or thing’s actual name.  A fun way to employ the figure is to do what Yoffee did: describe the object of your scorn as something wrapped in something.

Consider it a sort of rhetorical tamale.

Snappy Answer:  “Those countries must have sat next to those children on my last flight.”

Border Crossing

Quote:  “It was a border that came over us.  We didn’t come over the border.”  Ken Salazar, U.S. senator from Colorado, in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  chiasmus (key-AS-mus), the mirror figure.

Figaro gets all excited when a politician uses his favorite figure, the chiasmus (the letter “X” in Greek).  The chiasmus busts a judo move on an opponent’s argument by turning it upside down.  When President Kennedy used it  (“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”), thousands of chiasmus-besotted youth signed up for the Peace Corps.  And you thought rhetoric was empty.

Senator Salazar’s ancestors founded Santa Fe, New Mexico, more than half a century before those pasty-faced Pilgrims snuck over from England.   He uses a chiasmus to enforce the point that most of us red-blooded Americans are Johnnies — not Juans — Come Lately.

Snappy Answer:  “Some Indian tribes recall a time when there was no border.”