Most of these are taken From Mary Forsyth’s Elements of Eloquence or Ward Farnsworth’s Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric.
| Name | Examples | Notes | ||
| Ablaut Reduplication | Bish bash bosh, ding dong, hip hop, tit for tat, flip flop | Always has to be in the order : I A O | ||
| Add numbers | Seven by seven | Numbers just seem mysterious and significant, even when they are not. | ||
| Adjective order | Lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife | Opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. | ||
| Adynaton | Blood out of a stone, camel through the eye of a needle, pig flying, Hell freezing over | Stating something impossible | ||
| Alliteration | Five times the fearful fiend fled. | Paroemion is overuse of alliteration | ||
| Anacoenosis | Would you buy a car from this man? What have the Rromans ever done for us? | Where an answer a certain way is likely | ||
| Anacoluthon | breaking off a sentence so the first half you write…tthe second part is grammatically different | |||
| Anadiplosis | For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked no sooner looked but the loved no sooner loved but they sighed | Repetition of the last word of the line of the clause to begin the next. Can lead to climax | ||
| Anaphora | We shall fight them… (Churchill) I have a dream … (Martin Luther King) Fog everywhere , fog up the river , fog. (Dickens) What the hammer, what the chain, what the furnace was thy brain? (Blake) | Start each sentence with the same words. Very powerful. Use sparingly . Usually people only remember the anaphora | ||
| Antanaclasis | I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. | A repeated word changes its meaning. | ||
| Anthypophora | You ask what is our policy? I will say… | Answering your own questions | ||
| Antithesis | X is y; not x is not Y. | Journalism is unreadable: literature is unread .immature poets imitate: mature poets steal. | ||
| Antonomasia | Hey pointy ears! Give that stick to fart-arse. | Using a nickname in place of a name | ||
| Apodoxis | I won’t dignify that with a response | indignant rejection of a foe’s argument | ||
| Apoplanesis | Have you been smoking? Look! a bee! | A quick change of subject | ||
| Aporia | Are you Lonesome tonight? Will you still love me tomorrow? Who is that girl running around with you? | Asking a question you don’t expect the answer to. Breaking off into a personal debate | ||
| Aposiopesis | If I could only… | Not finishing your sentence | ||
| Apostrophe | You are a fart. Ye gods! | Changing the implied addressee | ||
| Assonance | Deep heat, blue moon | English has lots of schwa vowels so not as easy | ||
| Asyndeton | Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken | Avoiding conjuctions | ||
| Auxesis | And study or revenge…and courage never to submit and what else… | Cranking things up. climax and hyperbole fall within auxesis | ||
| Blazon | Overdoing the similes. So a person becomes a scrapbook of similes | |||
| Catachresis | Speak daggers. Dance me to the end of love. A bad case of loving you | Use words out of category to shock | ||
| Chiasmus | Tea for two and two for tea . I’ve got money on my mind and my mind in money. Judge not that ye be not judged. The moving finger writes and having writ moves on. By day the frolic and the dance by night (time, activity: activity, time), I see trees of green, red roses too (plant, colour: colour, plant). In Xanadu did Khubla Khan (a,a,u:u,a,a) beneath the thunders of the upper deep (I,u,u, o, I, u , I) | Symmetry | ||
| Climax | Good wine makes good blood, good blood causes good humours, good humours cause good thoughts, good thoughts create good works, and good works carry a man to heaven, so good wine carries a man to heaven | Mounting through linked words (means ladder) | ||
| Concession | You’re drunk! Yes, and you’re ugly, but in the morning I’ll be sober | Admitting a minor point to gain a more important one: “Yes, but…” | ||
| Congeries | See dickens and Shakespeare | Heaps, lists, can be nouns or adjectives. Usually without a verb | ||
| Diacope | Burn baby, burn. Bond, James Bond. Fly my pretties, fly | Repeat a word after a brief interruption | ||
| Dialysis | Either you were stealing from the company, or you did it by accident. If the former you’re a crook, if the latter, you’re an idiot. Either way you’re fired | Setting out disjunctive alternatives | ||
| Diazeumga | The man in the dock killed my wife, abused my children, stole my dog, beat my hamster | One subject governing multiple verbs | ||
| Enargia | Picture the scene, the lavender, the incense, the warm sun | painting a scene | ||
| Enumeratio | One for the money, two for the show | Numbering off | ||
| Epanalepsis | The king is dead; long live the king. Man’s inhumanity to man. Nothing will come of nothing. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! | Beginning and ending a phrase with the same word | ||
| Epimone | Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen – Moby Dick! – Moby Dick! | Repetition of phrases (not just words that’s epizeuxis) | ||
| Epiplexis | Why, God, why? What’s the point? | An expression of puzzled grief | ||
| Epistrope | A fine woman, a fair woman, a sweet woman. Government of the people, by the people , for the people | Ending each sentence, clause or paragraph with the same word . Anaphora backwards | ||
| Epizeukis | Weak, weak, weak. Location, location, location. Tiger , tiger burning bright | Repeating a word with exactly the same sense. Usually x3 | ||
| Erotesis / Erotema | And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England s mountains green.” “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” | A question that isn’t a question | ||
| Hendiadys | The noise and the city, Summertime and the living is easy. Out of the goodness of his heart. Grace and Favour | Making two nouns out of a noun and an adjective . Hard to work out. It inflates one thing into two. | ||
| Horismus | Man is an ape who tells jokes | A pithy definition | ||
| Hypallage | All your base are belong to us | Muddling up agreement of grammar of words | ||
| Hyperbaton | A green great dragon, One swallow does not a summer make | Wrong word order | ||
| Hyperbole | Exaggerating | |||
| Hypophora | Can he do it? Yes he can… | A question immediately answered aloud. A whole series of questions. | ||
| Hypotaxis | Long sentences with lots of clauses like Bruno Shultz or Ray Russell (Henry James, William Faulkner…) | |||
| Irony | Lovely weather we’re having in pouring rain | An untruth both parties agree is untrue. | ||
| Isocolon | Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Roses are red. Violets are blue. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t have any part of. | Two clauses of sentences that are the same in structure | ||
| Kairos | Timing | |||
| Litotes | Not inconsiderable. Franz Liszt plays the piano a little. Antarctic explorers saying ‘it’s not warm’ | Understatement using a negative | ||
| Merism | The long and the short and the tall, Beneath the moon or under the sun. | Naming the parts. Redundant and unnecessary | ||
| Metanoia | I hate you. No, I don’t hate you. I pity you. | Saying something then retracting it | ||
| Metaphor | Eyes as green as emeralds | Linking two things by similarity | ||
| Metonomy | The Vatican or Whitehall to represent the governments. A bit of skirt, Mr Eye Patch | Describing someone by what they are physically touching | ||
| Occultatio | Because I’m a nice guy, I’m not going to embarrass you | Pretending you’re not going to talk about something then doing so | ||
| Paradox | All the sinners are saints The sound of silence, The first shall be last, and the last first | Mostly paradoxes aren’t, but these are | ||
| Parataxis | I bought a cow. The cow was black. She gave milk. | Simple sentences with full stops one after the other. Hemingway liked it. Orwell liked it. | ||
| Paroemion | Too much alliteration | Too much alliteration | ||
| Periodic sentences | Every breath you take, every move you make, every blah you blah, I’ll be watching you | Long clauses with the verb finally | ||
| Personification | Duty calls, money talks, sleep beckons, fire-eyed fury, the iron tongue of midnight | An idea or object as a person | ||
| Pleonasm | 3 kinds: Redundancy Gather together, lift up, from whence. 2: Redundancy Again free gift, foreign import, added bonus. 3: For emphasis The inaudible and noiseless foot of time; how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. | Unnecessary words | ||
| Ploce | I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier. I’ve got ham but I’m not a hamster | General repetition | ||
| Polyptoton | Smile a lovely smile. Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung Which alters when it alteration finds Handle towards my hand, | Using a different form of the same word root. | ||
| Polysyndeton | Chaining together sentences with conjunctions | |||
| Progressio | A long line | A long sequence of antitheses. The best of times, the worst of times. Age of foolishness a time of hope… | ||
| Prolepsis | They fuck your up, your mum and dad. Nobody heard him, the dead man. They are not long, the days of wine and roses . | Using a pronoun before the noun to excite mystery. Can be like “The man stood on the deck…” before you ‘the man’s | ||
| Scesis Onomaton | London. Lamps all lighted. In victory: magnanimity | No verb. Sets eternal scene. Timeless | ||
| Subjectio | Do you think the speed limit doesn’t apply to you? Do you think Mr Mars Ellis Wallace is a bitch? | A series of questions like a barrister | ||
| Syllepsis | Cover yourself in dust and glory, Take your hat and take your leave Mirrors on the ceiling and champagne on ice (subtle) | Punning the different senses the same word can be used in | ||
| Symploce | Much of what I say might sound bitter, but it’s the truth. Much of what I say might sound like it’s stirring up trouble, but it’s the truth. Much of what I say might sound like it’s hate, but it’s the truth | Anaphora and epistrophe used in the same sentence. | ||
| Synaesthesia | She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight. The salt taste of memory (strong to an abstract) The smell of victory | One sense is described in terms of another . Stronger if it compares relates to an abstract | ||
| Synathroesmus | itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny, He schemed, he plotted, he lied, he stole, he raped, he killed and he parked.. | heaping up of words, sometimes similar (verbs) | ||
| Synecdoche | A top brain, a keen heart. What immortal hand or eye? The face that launched a thousand ships | Referring to a body part to represent someone. Fragments that narrate a whole story | ||
| Syntheton | Truth and justice, Liberty and livelihood | joined by a conjuction | ||
| Systrophe | He’s the greatest, fantastic, ace, amazing | A pile up of qualities. | ||
| Tmesis | Abso-fucking-lutely | Sticking a word in the middle of word | ||
| Transferred Epithet | Clumsy helmets, unkindest cut, muttering shadows, restless nights, lonely streets | Usually an emotion transferred to their environment . A street can’t really be lonely. | ||
| Tricolon | I came; I saw; I conquered. Sun, sea and sex | Three. But also set up a pattern and break it. Better if 3 item is longer Sam Leith an ascending tricolon Friends, Romans, Countrymen . 1 syllable, 2 syllables, 3 syllables | ||
| Zeugma | Tom likes whisky, Harry wine, and Bill port. The good end happily and the bad unhappily. | Tricolon crecens, terms get longer, tricolon diminuens, they get shorter | ||
| Conduplicatio | A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men | Repetition of the same word but separated by other words | ||