Martha Stewart's Newest Role Models

Quote:  "Show us a magazine without a signature drink, and we’ll show you an uptight staff without priorities." Martha Stewart’s new magazine.

Figure of Speech:  exergasia (ex-er-GAS-ia), the restatement.

Martha has just launched Blueprint: Design Your Life, a magazine for youngish women who have not yet learned the fulfilling art of practicing origami on dinner napkins.

The editors even invented their own drink, the Blueprint Martini.  To defend their alcohol-enhanced joie de vivre, they use an exergasia ("workout"), a figure that restates a thought in different words.  It’s a great way of defining an issue directly: this means that.

However, the magazine’s name offends Figaro.  It makes obnoxious use of this year’s trendy punctuation mark: the colon.  Besides, as Plato once said (more or less):  "Don’t design your life.  Examine it."

We suggest the entire staff submit to a colonoscopy.

Snappy Answer:  "So your priority is getting plastered?"

Herd of This Website?

Quote:  "My first reaction was a smile; it is very creative.  My second reaction is that we have to stop this."  Bert Kuiper, mayor of the Dutch town of Skarsterlan, in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  reluctant conclusion, a tactic to prove disinterest.

Hotels.nl, a Dutch travel website, is putting its logo on blankets and the blankets on sheep throughout the Netherlands.  The campaign has earned the company a thousand-euro daily fine for violating a town ban on advertising along the highway.

The mayor explains his decision with a reluctant conclusion:  claiming that he once held the opposing position but was overwhelmed by the logic on the other side.   It’s a great way to prove your disinterest.

People often confuse "disinterest" with "uninterest,"  but they’re two very different words.  A disinterested person isn’t bored; he has no personal stake in the matter.   An audience will find you more trustworthy if it thinks you have nothing to gain.

Like those poor hot sheep.

Snappy Answer:  "Your third reaction might be to buy stock in the company.  The website’s sales are up 15 percent."

Bond Fans Shaken, Not Stirred

Quote:  "When you heard the casting announcement about Craig as Bond, you might have thought that it was all over, and there was nothing you could do about it.  Well you were wrong!" CraigNotBond.com.

Figure of Speech: anthypophora (an-thy-PO-phor-a), the figure of anticipation.

Global warming, terrorism, civil liberties, blah, blah, blah.  Now, here’s an issue that gets us ginned up:

A website has formed for the sole purpose of getting people to boycott Casino Royale, the James Bond movie coming out this fall.  The producers, you see, committed the atrocity of signing blond lug Daniel Craig to a three-film contract as the sixth Bond. 

"The Internet.  It’s Democracy.   It Has to Work," the site says earnestly.  Then it gives a reassuring anthypophora ("pre-reply"), a figure that anticipates, and answers, the audience’s objections. 

The very best figures of thought lull the audience into a passive state of agreement.  By providing them with their own objections, the anthypophora frees them from the chore of thinking for themselves.  We highly recommend it for any bubble-headed audience, such as one that obsesses over Bond actors.

For all those who love democracy, CraigNotBond.com has an opposition site, CraigIsBond.com.  Your Internet.  It Works.

Snappy Answer:  "Good shot, old chap! But do you have a silencer?"

You Disrespect My Man But I Ain't Giving Him No Can

Quote:  "I’m the decider, and I decide what is best.  And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."  President Bush.

Figure of Speech:  anadiplosis (an-a-di-PLO-sis), the last-word, first-word repetition.

Generals don’t like Rummy.  Congress doesn’t like him either.  He fails to defer to generals and members of Congress.  Oh, and he screwed up the war in Iraq. 

But Bush is the decider, and he uses an anadiplosis ("redouble") to announce his decidingness.  The figure takes the last word of a phrase and repeats it in the beginning of the next phrase, giving an overlapping effect to a sentence — sort of like roof tiles, making the whole thing logically watertight.

An anadiplosis can also make you sound like a hip hop artist; in this case, a very white hip hop artist.  You got to work on that rhythm, Dawg.

Snappy Answer:  "You mean what’s best for Don Rumsfeld, or the country?"

Nation Breaks Out in Hives!

Quote:  "BzzAgent is the coolest reality marketing experience you’ll ever take part in." Word-of-mouth marketing company BzzAgent, Inc.

Figure of Speech:  Ethos, argument by character.

Once upon a time in this great marketocracy of ours, millions and millions of private conversations went tragically unmonetized.  Then a visionary firm found a way to "organize and manage honest, real-world conversations between everyday consumers."

Boston-based BzzAgent uses 150,000 volunteers ("BzzAgents") who, in return for free products, agree to hype them.  Although the firm depends on modern phenomena like the Internet and a shameless, greedy citizenry, the technique is thousands of years old.  Aristotle called it Ethos, or appeal by character.

While we might wish that all arguments stuck to The Truth, a decision to buy something isn’t true or false, only potentially good or bad. That’s where Ethos comes in.  If your pal likes the product, you’re more likely to as well.

But what if your pal likes the product just because she got it for free?  You may have asked this question yourself.  If so, you’re a Communist.

Snappy Answer:  "It certainly is!" [These words were crafted on a Dell notebook computer.  Check out the new Intel^® dual-core processor systems! ]

On the Other Hand, You Can Blame Judas' Ghost Writer

Quote:  "If Jesus had been acting consistently and seeking a trusted companion who could facilitate his necessary martyrdom, then all the mental and moral garbage about the Jewish frame-up of the Redeemer goes straight over the side."  Christopher Hitchens in Slate.

Figure of Speech:  enthymeme (EN-thih-meme), the argument packet.

The Gospel of Judas has finally come to light after hiding out in Egypt and in greedy art dealers’ vaults for a millennium and a half.  An impressive feat of revisionist religion, it turns Judas into Jesus’ martyrdom enabler.

Christopher Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair, makes it the premise in an enthymeme ("something in the mind"), the rhetorical version of Aristotle’s syllogism.  If Hitchens’ logic were in the form of a syllogism, it would go like this:

Jesus had a helper facilitate his necessary martyrdom.
Someone who directs his own martyrdom can’t be a victim.
Therefore,  the Jews didn’t victimize him.

The enthymeme leaves out the middle, well-duh part, which, Aristotle said, would tax the audience’s attention span.

Snappy Answer:  "Enough with the blaming.  Celebrate the rebirth, of Jesus or of spring."