Or Just Curl Up with a Spine-Tingling Webster's Collegiate

Quote: "It’s captivating, just sitting down there and watching these kids spelling words you’ve never heard before." ESPN spokesman Mac Nwulu in the AP.

Figure of Speech:  anacoluthon  (an-a-COL-u-thon), the  grammar  shift.

The National Spelling Bee has finally made it to prime time TV.  ABC will air the finals next month.  But ESPN has been airing America’s nerdiest sport for years.  The network’s spokesman uses an anacoluthon (“lacking order”) to describe the thrill of witnessing word-stuffed pre-pubes wrestle with orthographic punctilios.  (Figaro can’t spell worth a damn, but he dares those punks to take him on in synonyms and neologizing.)

The anacoluthon begins a sentence with a grammatical order that changes partway through — not "It’s captivating to sit…" but "It’s captivating, just sitting…"  The figure allows you to introduce a shift in scene, like blurring a movie frame before a dream sequence.

Use it to hold your audience — you know — spellbound.

Snappy Answer: "We’ll watch it for the foreign beer commercials and highly educated cheerleaders."

Who Let Them In?

Quote:  "Today we march, tomorrow we vote."

Figure of Speech:  isocolon (i-so-CO-lon), the figure of even clauses.

Hundreds of thousands of people protested legislation that would turn illegal immigrants into felons.  One of the most common signs used an isocolon ("equal member"), which puts similar clauses side by side.

The today-tomorrow isocolon ("Today, Hollywood; tomorrow, the world!") is especially powerful.  The figure’s rhythm creates a subliminal momentum that makes a promise — or threat — seem inevitable.

Snappy Answer:  "Actually, tomorrow you work.  That’s why you’re still here."

Other rhythmic figures.

Plus, They’ll Never Sell the Movie Rights

Quote:  "Nobody reads them.  They have no significance.  Nothing in the world changes by the publication of a signing statement." Jack Goldsmith, Harvard Law School professor.

Figure of Speech:  commoratio (co-mor-RAT-io), the idea repeater.

George W. Bush has never vetoed a bill, making him unique among modern presidents.  But then, he doesn’t have to.  Instead, he files "signing statements" — memos for the Federal Register that reinterpret the bills. Then he does what he wants, regardless of those insignificant people in Congress and the Supreme Court.

Don’t worry your pretty little head, says Jack Goldsmith, who up to last year oversaw the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.  Those signing statements mean nothing.  He says this three times with a commoratio ("lingering"), which dwells on a point in different words.  It’s the equivalent of a jab in boxing: rapid blows that keep your opponent off balance.

Goldsmith is close to being right.  Almost nobody — except the bureaucrats responsible for carrying out those laws — reads the Federal Register.

Snappy Answer:  "And if you support this president, you’ll continue ignoring them."

Oh, Say!

Quote:  "The Illegal Alien Anthem."  Columnist Michelle Malkin.

Figure of Speech: tapinosis (tap-in-O-sis), the nickname put-down.  Also epideictic rhetoric, the speech of tribal identity.

A group of Hispanic music stars have recorded "Nuestro Himno," a Spanish version of the national anthem.  The anti-immigrant crowd has labeled the song with a  belittling nickname called a tapinosis ("demeaning").

A national anthem is the ultimate tribal language.  Aristotle called this kind of rhetoric epideictic, or "demonstrative."  It’s the speech of sermons, funeral orations, and patriotic songs.  Demonstrative rhetoric states a group’s values and helps define who’s in and who’s out of the tribe. 

So you can understand why some patriots might object.  Singing the national anthem in Spanish is a contradiction in terms.  Literally.

Snappy Answer:  "Pero no nos ocupemos más de este hija de mala madre."

She Also Deserves the National Brook Award

Quote:  "Mum can’t talk to you now; she’s just got the Pulitzer surprise." Nine-year-old son of Geraldine Brooks, author of the prizewinning book “March,” in USA Today.

Figure of Speech: malapropism (MAL-a-prop-ism) or acyrologia (a-keer-o-LO-gia), the fortunate mix-up.

Brooks’ Civil War novel won the Pulitzer, beating a better-known Civil War book by E.L. Doctorow (titled, coincidentally, The March).

So credit Brooks fils with an excellent malapropism.  It’s an eponym named for the addlebrained literary character, Mrs. Malaprop.  But credit the Greeks for coining the figure two and a half millennia before.  The acyrologia ("unauthorized speech") swaps a word with a like-sounding but fortuitously wrong substitute.

As good as young Master Brooks is with the figure, its reigning master is Yogi Berra.

Snappy Answer:  "Please tell your mum that we wish her a seedy recovery."

Be Thankful I Don't Take It All

Quote:  "Gasoline price increases are like a hidden tax on the working people."  President Bush.

Figure of Speech:  false analogy, the fallacy of strange bedfellows.

The president has an answer for America’s oil addiction: make gas cheaper.  Figaro finds this an odd cure — like using an overdose to shake a heroin habit — but since the Democrats offer the same cure, it must be a good idea.

Still, we take issue with Bush’s latest analogy, equating a price increase with taxes.  When taxes rise, there is usually little you can do about it unless you’re rich enough to find a dodge.  But when the price of a commodity increases, people can try to consume less of it.  That’s what used to be known as the "free market."

The false analogy is the most dangerous kind of fallacy, because it can permanently distort reality.  If prices are taxes, then only government can fix them.  That’s what used to be known as "socialism."

Snappy Answer:  "Which makes Cheney the taxman."