Schemes R Us
Trip Troping Away
Study ... I Repeat ... Study Your Terms
Balance Beam
Alex, I'm getting a 5 on this exam
100
"Let it be our cause to give that child a happy home, a healthy family, and a hopeful future." (Bill Clinton, 1992 DNC Acceptance Address) ... repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words.
What is Alliteration?
100
“The night is bleeding like a cut.” (Bono) ... explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature, usually using “like” or “as”.
What is Simile?
100
"The grammarian was very logical. He had a lot of comma sense." A joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words that sound alike but have different meanings.
What is a Pun?
100
“So Janey waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time.”—Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God ... similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.
What is Parallelism?
100
"It was an open secret that the company had used a paid volunteer to test the plastic glasses. Although they were made using liquid gas technology and were an original copy that looked almost exactly like a more expensive brand, the volunteer thought that they were pretty ugly and that it would be simply impossible for the general public to accept them. On hearing this feedback, the company board was clearly confused and there was a deafening silence. ." A trope that connects two contradictory terms
What is oxymoron?
200
"Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island." (Franklin Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor Address) A scheme in which the same word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive clauses or phrases.
What is Anaphora?
200
"The pen is mightier than the sword." ... substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant.
What is Metonymy?
200
"I will fight for you. I will fight to save Social Security. I will fight to raise the minimum wage." A scheme in which the same word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences.
What is anaphora?
200
“What if I am rich, and another is poor—strong, and he is weak—intelligent, and he is benighted—elevated, and he is depraved? Have we not one Father? Hath not one God created us?”—William Lloyd Garrison, “No Compromise with Slavery” ... the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure.
What is Antithesis?
200
A never-ending circle ... A conclusion is assumed, then used to prove itself.
What is Begging the Question?
300
"Americans in need are not strangers, they are citizens, not problems, but priorities." A scheme that makes use of contrasting words, phrases, sentences, or ideas for emphasis (generally used in parallel grammatical structure).
What is Antithesis?
300
“It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.” (Catcher in the Rye) ... deliberate use of understatement.
What is Litotes?
300
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” (John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address) ... repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order.
What is Antimetabole?
300
“His purpose was to impress the ignorant, to perplex the dubious, and to confound the scrupulous.” ... a scheme of parallel structure which occurs when the parallel elements are similar not only in grammatical structure but also in length (number of words or even number of syllables).
What is Isocolon?
300
"Spring, with new buds popping out, flowers blooming, and mild temperatures, is my favorite season." A sentence in which the main clause or predicate occurs at the end. This is used for emphasis and can be persuasive by putting reasons for something at the beginning before the final point is made. It can also create suspense or interest for the reader.
What is a periodic sentence?
400
"I believe we should fight for justice. You believe we should fight for justice. How can we not, then, fight for justice?" A scheme in which the same word is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences.
What is Epistrophe?
400
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” (Winston Churchill, 1940) ... figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole.
What is Synecdoche?
400
"...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address) ... repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive phrases.
What is Epistrophe?
400
Any trilogy, stressing the unifying elements of the three items; used for emphasis or intensity.
What is Tricolon?
400
"The San Bernardino Valley lies only an hour east of Los Angeles by the San Bernardino Freeway but is in certain ways an alien place: not the coastal California of the subtropical twilights and the soft westerlies off the Pacific but a harsher California, haunted by the Mojave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through the passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves." (Joan Didion, "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream." Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 1968) An independent clause followed by a series of subordinate constructions (phrases or clauses) that gather details about a person, place, event, or idea.
What is a cumulative sentence?
500
"Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you." A rhetorical device in which two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures in order to produce an artistic effect.
What is Chiasmus?
500
“And yet, it was a strangely satisfying experience for an invisible man to hear the silence of sound.” (Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man) ... an apparently contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth.
What is Paradox?
500
"They call for you: The general who became a slave; the slave who became a gladiator; the gladiator who defied an Emperor." ... repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause.
What is Anadiplosis?
500
"What is learned unwillingly is gladly forgotten." ... criss-cross ... a form of antithesis in which the second half of the statement inverts the grammatical elements of the first half.
What is Chiasmus?
500
All oranges are fruits All fruits grow on trees Therefore, all oranges grow on trees
What is a syllogism or deductive reasoning?
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