Snatching Iraq from the Jaws of Doves

Quote:  "Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting off funding from our ally in 1975."  Melvin Laird, Nixon’s Defense Secretary, writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.

Figure of Speech:  hysteron proteron (HIS ter on PRO ter on), the word swap.

Remember the Vietnam War?  The one that we were continually on the verge of winning until we lost it?  The one that was going to bring democracy to all of Southeast Asia?  And where most natives of both sides saw us as occupiers instead of liberators?

Now we know why we lost it.  It was Congress's fault for yanking funding for the war after nine futile years.

Laird uses the hysteron proteron, which reverses the ordinary word order of a sentence -- "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory -- in a not-so-subtle reference to Iraq.

Snappy Answer:  "The jaws of victory were biting us in the butt."

Attack of the Killer Lepidoptera

Quote:  "Butterfly Effect." Name given to chaos theory by MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960s.

Figure of Speech:  metalepsis (met ah LEP sis), the figure of remote cause.

A butterfly flapping its wings in South America can change the weather in Central Park -- a phenomenon called "sensitive dependence on initial conditions," or the Butterfly Effect.  It's also an Ashton Kusher movie and the idea behind "Jurassic Park."

But it's not an original idea.  Ancient rhetoricians made it a figure of speech: metalepsis (Greek for "substitution," unhelpfully).  Anything credited with a remote outcome counts as a metalepsis -- say, blaming Congressional Democrats for the war in Iraq.

Snappy Answer:  "In politics, it's called the Neocon Effect."

That Depends on Where the Meaning of “Lie” Lies

Quote:   "It is a lie to say that the president lied to the American people."  Dick Cheney, quoting John McCain in a speech to a conservative think tank.

Figure of Speech:  polyptoton (poe LIP toe ton), the root repeater.

The polyptoton (Greek for "multiple grammatical cases") repeats the root of a word while changing its ending -- "lie" to "lied," for instance.  Robert Frost used the figure when he said,  "Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."  (Thanks,  Richard Nordquist.)

Snappy Answer:  "Is it misleading to say he misled them?"

Pimp My Hair

Quote:
"Who knew so many pimps were wannabe bluehairs?" -- John
"Who knew so many bluehairs were wannabe pimps?" -- Jeanne
Nominating the Chrysler 300 as "ugliest car" on the 'Car Talk'  website.

Figure of Speech:  synecdoche  (sin ECK dokee), the scale-changing figure.

"Bluehairs" refers to old ladies, not strangely dyed hairs, right?  That's what makes "bluehairs" a synecdoche ("taking one thing with another")  -- a word that swaps a part for the whole or vice versa.  The word on the street is a synecdoche.  (Two of 'em, actually: "word" and "street.")

The figure also swaps a genus for a species, or a species for a genus.  If you're old enough to have heard Helen Redding sing her delicately understated "I am Woman, hear me roar," you experienced a synecdoche.

Snappy Answer:   "Who knew 'Car Talk' listeners could tell what a pimp was?"

And Thy Hips Are Like a Burger Which Thou Hast Supersized

Quote:  "Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies."  Song of Solomon  4:5

Figure of Speech:  blazon, the physical description of a lover.

Solomon's Song of Songs is the the most daring part of the Bible -- not just poetically, but from the relationship standpoint.  You try comparing your lover's breasts to a pair of deer.

Shakespeare makes fun of the blazon in Sonnet 130, the one that says his "mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun."  "If hairs be wires," he chortles, "black wires grow on her head."  Shakespeare clearly had plenty of time to write at night.

Snappy Answer:  "I know a surgeon who can turn them into a pair of moose."

Reading This Blog Could Shorten Your Useful Life by 3.7 Minutes

Quote:  "Is this one of those cases where the news is the opposite of what the news says the news is?" Mickey Kaus in his Slate blog, the Kaus Files

Figure of Speech:  antistasis (an TIH sta sis), the repeat that changes a word's meaning.

Researchers say that regular exercise can lengthen your lifespan by 3.7 years.  "Only 3.7 years?"  Kaus wheezes.  “It almost doesn't seem worth it."  Then he tosses in an antistasis for good measure.  The figure repeats a word in a way that changes or contradicts its original meaning.  You'll often find it nested in a chiasmus.  ("You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.")

Actually, 3.7 years sounds like a lot.  In that time we could watch 17,520 episodes of the "Simpsons."

Snappy Answer:  "When you figure it out, come find us at the health club."