I LOVE RHETORIC. Politicians love rhetoric. Barack Obama is a master of it, as was Churchill. Tony Blair used to beat it into shape with a heavy fist (education, education, education). As the Ancient Greeks knew, it could greatly help to convince your listeners of the truth of what you were saying.
But I always found it difficult to remember which of the many Greek words stood for each rhetorical device. That’s why I devised this simple dictionary as an aide memoire.
Alliteration is always a same-sound solution.
Allusion is truth, as Keats might have said.
Amplification – rhetorical amplification – is repeating a word while adding more detail.
Anacoluthon is a sudden change of grammatical structure – but you know this already.
Anadiplosis is last word repetition. Repetition that starts the following sentence.
Analogy grows an idea. Fertiliser for your word garden.
Anaphora is repetition. Anaphora is easy.
Antanagoge may point out the faults, but it also highlights the benefits.
Antimetabole is word reversal, and that reversal is antimetabole.
Antiphrasis has all the irony of a tiny mammoth.
Aporia expresses doubt, I think – I may have got this wrong.
Aposiopesis is a sudden and abrupt—
Appositive employs an additional noun, a word that helps to define it.
Assonance uses words, when heard, that sound well-found.
Asyndeton omits conjunctions between words, phrases, clauses.
Antithesis contrasts ideas: but it compares concepts.
Apophasis asserts by seeming to deny. We will not discuss it here.
Catachresis uses extravagant metaphor to lubricate your sentences.
Chiasmus reverses word order. It’s learned quickly, but easily forgotten.
Climax is the foundation of promise, the building of expectation, the pinnacle of discourse.
Conduplicatio also repeats words. It repeats them even if they’re not the last word.
Diacope is repetition, after a break: diacope is no more than repetition.
Dirimens copulatio balances the argument – but it doesn’t always work.
Distinctio is about definition – and by ‘definition’, I mean explaining the terms.
Enumeratio finds detail in the sentences, the words, the syllables themselves.
Epanalepsis is also about repetition. First becomes last, that’s epanalepsis.
Epistrophe repeats words; it duplicates words; but only final words.
Epixeusis is one word repetition, repetition, repetition.
Epithet adds an adjective to linguistic language.
Eponym, which names the famed, is the Newton of rhetoric.
Expletives interrupt, if allowed, the flow of a sentence.
Hyperbaton employs a word order surprising.
Hyperbole is the best form of exaggeration in the world.
Hypophora is what, precisely? Hypophora is answering your own questions.
Hypotaxis shows the relationship between phrases: the opposite of parataxis.
Litotes describes by not endorsing the opposite.
Metabasis is a summing-up. We’ve discussed some rhetoric; next we’ll look at some more.
Metanoia recalls a statement – not just repeating the phrase, but amplifying it.
Metaphor is the Swiss Army knife of rhetoric.
Metonymy replaces the subject with an associated object, and is often taught by schools.
Oxymoron is a unifying contradiction.
Parallelism uses symmetrical syntax to create emphasis and to build momentum.
Parataxis takes successive clauses, it links them, and it explains them.
Parenthesis – if you didn’t know – interrupts the flow.
Personification humanises the abstract, and is the friendliest of rhetorical devices.
Pleonasms use more words than they actually need.
Polysyndeton adds a conjunction between words and phrases and clauses.
Protacalepsis anticipates an objection. But then it refutes it.
Scesis onamaton is restating, rephrasing, reimagining your words.
Sententia quotes wisdom – and as Aristotle said, wisdom begins in wonder.
Symploce repeats the end: but symploce repeats the start, as well as the end.
Synechdoche, using a part for the whole, is favoured by the educated pen.
Zeugma works by setting up expectation; building tension; and following through.
