Noah’s Lark

Quote:  "Not only does this feel good, but it smells good and it tastes good." Joakim Noah, star player for the NCAA champion Florida Gators.

Figure of Speech:  antistrophe, the last-word repeater.  Also enargia, the special effects of rhetoric.

Joakim Noah is tasting — and smelling and feeling — the fruits of victory after the Gators’ triumph over UCLA.  He describes his sensations with an antistrophe ("circle back"), which repeats the last word in successive phrases or clauses.

This particular antistrophe runs through all the senses except, strangely, for sight and sound.  It’s a pretty good device, as long as you actually describe what you’re sensing.  Which Noah fails to do.

Snappy Answer:  "I doubt that you smelled that good after the game."

There Went the Neighborhood

Quote:  "As recently as the seventies, magazines all about celebrities were beneath contempt for respectable people, a small, nearly invisible media ghetto — or, rather, media trailer park. "  Kurt Anderson in New York Magazine.

Figure of Speech:  metanoia (met-an-OI-a), the self-correction.

The celebrity era is finally coming to a sad, liposucked end, according to Anderson, who notes that fewer Americans watched the Oscars and Grammys this year, and that the major fan mags are hurting.

He is old enough to recall the years B.C. (Before Celebrity), when most real people actually didn’t care what the fake ones were doing.  Anderson emphasizes the point by topping off his sentence with a metanoia ("change of heart"), a faintly ironic figure that corrects an earlier phrase to make a stronger point.  It’s a great way to spruce up a cliché like "media ghetto."

Snappy Answer:  "That was before Paris Hilton got into video performance art."

Defibrillator and a Rosary, Stat!

Quote:  "It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?" Oklahoma cardiologist Charles Bethea in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  dialogismus, the quoting figure.  Also innuendo, the idea insertion.

Do a stranger’s prayers help heart patients recover?  New findings say probably not; in fact, the praying can actually hurt the patient.  Dr. Bethea, one of the co-authors of a $2.4 million study, guesses why in a dialogismus ("dialogue"), which brings another person’s words into an argument.

Rhetoric would lend credence to Bethea’s theory. The prayers may have committed accidental innuendo ("significant nod") — inserting negative ideas in people’s heads like Nixon’s "I am not a crook."

Three congregations prayed for the heart patients, asking God "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications." The patients were informed of the prayers, which, in the anxious mind, could be translated into:  "Don’t let Patient X die a slow, agonizing death or suffer from the many easily imagined complications."

You can see why the sleaziest politicians love innuendo.  It opens Pandora’s Box even while praying for closure.

Snappy Answer: "Imagine the TV series, though. ‘CSI: Holy Intercession.’"

He Follows the Law Like a Tantony Pig

Quote:  "The use of military commissions to try enemy combatants has been part and parcel of the war power for 200 years."  Solicitor General Paul Clement.

Figure of Speech: idiom (ID-ee-om), the figure of inseparable words.

About every other day, Figaro gets an email that contains a cluster of words and a request to name the figure.  Usually, the cluster is an idiom ("peculiar" or "singular"), a group of words that must taken, well, part and parcel; they serve as a single word with one meaning.  "Part and parcel," for instance, means the same as another idiom, "comes with the territory."  The government’s top trial lawyer uses it to defend military tribunals for what the administration calls "enemy combatants."

An idiom might be Greek to you.   Joe Average may not have the foggiest notion of what a person is getting at, but take it all with a grain of salt and Bob’s your uncle.  Catch my drift?

Snappy Answer:  "One, this is not a war, at least not an ordinary war.  Two, it’s not a war crime because that doesn’t fall under international law. And three, it’s not a war crime tribunal or commission because [there is] no emergency."  Justice Breyer, responding to Clement with a eutrepismus.

Welcome to the Lobbying Effort, Comrade

Quote:  "We’ve staked out an agenda that really is about promoting the open Internet as a revolutionary platform for communication." Alan Davidson, Google’s “policy counsel," in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  periergia (per-ee-ER-gia), the figure of over-figuring.

When you hear what something is "really about," prepare to be spun.  Congress is slamming Google, whose motto is "Don’t be evil," for helping the Chinese government censor websites.  There’s only one thing a company can do in such a crisis of democracy:  hire lobbyists.

Mr. Davidson describes Google’s effort — most notably a boatload of cash for members of Congress — as nothing less than the next phase in human evolution.  He drips figures like a Gucci-shod Jackson Pollack: an agenda staked out like a mining claim, an "open" Internet with welcoming arms, a revolution, a platform (see mining claim).  The result is a periergia ("overworked"), the grandiose overuse of figures.

Snappy Answer:  "Do the parties accept PayPal?"

We’re Not Worthy

Quote:  "Okay, pop quiz. Cassandra is not interested in Benjamin because … A: Chicks think he’s handsome, B: has cool car, C: has lots of cash, D: has no visible scars, E: does not live with parents."  Garth Algar in the movie "Wayne’s World."

Figure of Speech:  eutrepismus (eu-tra-PIS-mus), the enumerating figure.  Also diazeugma (di-a-ZEUG-ma), the play-by-play figure.

"Wayne’s World" is not merely Michael Myers’ first hit; to the discerning figurist, the movie constitutes a rhetorical orchard full of ripe figures.

Wayne is in denial about the suave television producer who’s pursuing his girlfriend.  Garth retorts with a eutrepismus ("well turned"), a figure that slices an argument into neatly numbered or lettered parts.  Cicero saw this device as a form of "division," in which the orator dissects the issue at hand near the beginning of his address.

As if that weren’t enough high-powered rhetoric for you, Garth’s little oration also employs a diazeugma ("multiple yoking"), which makes one noun serve a succession of clauses — a favorite of sportscasters.

Snappy Answer:  "Okay, how about, F: you’re a gimp."