Those Who Love Pi Are Square

Quote:

Sir, I send a rhyme excelling
In sacred truth and rigid spelling
Numerical sprites elucidate
For me the lexicon’s dull weight.
Wikiquote

Figure of Speech: piphilology (pi-phil-OL-ogy), a mathematical mnemonic creator.

It’s a geek’s dream.  The number of letters in each word of the doggerel corresponds to a digit in pi:  3.14159265358979 and so on.  Figaro found it in Wikipedia’s page on mnemonics — devices to help you memorize things.  Mnemonics are highly rhetorical; Cicero listed Memory among his five canons, and the Romans used all sorts of ways to memorize their orations, including “memory villas” and pornography.

Wikipedia, for its part, offers memory assistance in everything from computing to home repair.  But our favorite sort of mnemonic employs piphilology (pi and philology, a branch of linguistics).  This obscure field exists for the sole purpose of memorizing digits in pi.  Figaro was so excited when he discovered it that he spilled his coffee.  Figaro is a geek.

Snappy Answer:  “Nonsense! Pure nonsense!” said I, fairly yelping.  “But wait! It’s for pi! May I have a helping?”

And Crown Thy Good

Quote: “I’m living the American dream!”   Taylor Hicks, the new American Idol.

Figure of Speech: commonplace, the boiled-down public belief.

Who says Americans don’t vote?  The “American Idol” finale tallied 63.4 million votes — more, bragged host Ryan Seacrest, “than any president in the history of our country has ever received.”  Sigh.

The winner expressed his joy with a commonplace, an expression that encapsulates an audience’s beliefs.  If it’s vapid and overused, it can cross the line into cliche.  But Aristotle himself made the commonplace the centerpiece of his enthymeme.

And for good reason.  The “American Dream” boils down the Horatio Alger myth: through pluck and God-given luck, a person can rise from poverty and obscurity to become rich and famous.  It’s actually been getting more difficult to cross social classes in America.  Which makes the American Dream — and “American Idol” — more compelling than ever.

Snappy Answer:  “I’m living the pop culture nightmare!”

Heaven Is Like a Box of Chocolates

Quote:  “Our salvation depends on Forrest Gump.”  Dana Stevens, Slate’s movie critic.

Figure of Speech:  meiosis (my-O-sis), the shrinking figure.

The paranoid, pretentious, tedious, wildly inaccurate “Da Vinci Code” movie seems to live down to the pretentious, tedious, inaccurate book.

It’s a great gimmick, though.  Jesus was just a regular guy, see — a fact that the Catholic Church has been covering up for centuries.  Tom Hanks and his bad haircut find clues all over the place, including the work of the misnamed “Da Vinci” (Leonardo in real life; no relation to DiCaprio.)

Dana Stevens sums it all up in a meiosis (“shrink”), a figure that re-labels persons or things to belittle them.  The movie wants us to believe that only Tom Hanks’s character can reveal the truth.  But she doesn’t call him by the character’s name, or even by “Tom Hanks”; instead she uses his  goofiest part to heighten the incongruity of an actor granting us our salvation.

Snappy Answer:  “Cool!”

Rove Feels Really Centered

Quote: “…ultimately, the American people are a center-right country who, presented with a center-right party with center-right candidates, will vote center-right.”  Karl Rove

Figure of Speech:  epistrophe (e-PIS-tro-phee), the end-word repeat.  (Also known as antistrophe.)

The GOP gets jittery when it thinks about the November mid-term elections.  The only thing Americans hate worse than congressional Democrats are congressional Republicans.

Karl Rove puts an optimistic face on the matter with deft use of an epistrophe (“turning around”), a figure that repeats the last word in successive clauses.  The repetition lets you build a case that sounds inevitable.  If America looks like a duck, and a candidate runs like a duck, then America will vote for that duck.

Snappy Answer:  “You have the right party.  Where’s the center party?”

McAble

Quote:  “Let us argue with each other then.  By all means, let us argue.”   John McCain at Columbia’s commencement.

Figure of Speech:  diacope (di-AH-co-pee), the doubler.

George W. Bush may help John McCain become the next president — not because Bush supports the senator, but because a lot of voters who are sick of Bush’s coded speech will find McCain’s old-fashioned eloquence refreshing.

Take the diacope (“divide”), a figure that repeats a word or phrase with a few words in between.  McCain uses it to emphasize “let us argue” while building an irresistible rhythm.

Figaro is a great believer in argument (see the exciting update on his book!), and he loves McCain’s eloquent paean for it. We can’t wait to argue against him in the months to come.

Snappy Answer:  “First, step down from that podium.”

Because the Car Stinks

Quote:  “Volkswagen Passat, lowest ego emissions of any German made sedan.” TV commercial.

Figure of Speech:  code grooming, the language of the tribe.

VW’s new ad campaign makes fun of car companies that play on consumers’ insecurities.  It shows non-VW drivers shouting through megaphones:  “Because daddy never hugged me!”  “Because I make more money than you!”  “Because I am compensating for my shortcomings!”

What is VW doing with this ad?  It’s appealing to a market segment called “low self-monitors,” the sort of people who hate to show off.  Of course, low self-monitors want other people to know they’re not showing off.  Which, when you think about it, is showing off.

So the TV commercial actually does what it ridicules.  It welcomes  us to that superior tribe of well-adjusted souls who don’t seek approval through their choice of car.   Figaro calls this technique “code grooming” — language that pulls a tribe together.  (For more on code grooming, click here.)

In short, by advertising low “ego emissions,” VW emits a big hot blast of it.

Snappy Answer:   “I can still smell the ego.”