Figure of speech
A figure of speech is a use of a word that diverges from its normal meaning,[citation needed] or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it.[citation needed] Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation. A figure of speech is sometimes called a rhetoric or a locution.
Alliteration
Alliteration is a literary or rhetorical stylistic device that consists in repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession. In poetry, alliteration may also refer to repetition of a consonant in any syllables.
Examples:
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers …
"Come…dragging the lazy languid Line along"
Anaphora
This article is about the rhetorical term. For other uses, see Anaphora (disambiguation).In rhetoric, an anaphora (Greek: ἀναφορά, "carrying back") is a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending them emphasis. In contrast, an epistrophe (or epiphora) is repeating words at the clauses' ends.
Examples
Strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants!
Strike deep as my curse!
Strike! and but once
— Byron
Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!
— William Shakespeare, King John, II, i
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
— Winston Churchill
Antithesis
A simple enumeration of the elements of dialectics is that of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Hell is the antithesis of Heaven; disorder is the antithesis of order. It is the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, usually in a balanced way. In rhetoric, it is a figure of speech involving the bringing out of a contrast in the ideas by an obvious contrast in the words, clauses, or sentences, within a parallel grammatical structure.
Some other examples of antithesis are:
a) Man proposes, God disposes.
b) Give everyman thy ear, but few thy voice.
c) Many are called, but few are chosen.
Apostrophe (figure of speech)
.Apostrophe (Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, "turning away"; the final e being sounded) is an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a talker or writer breaks off and directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea. In dramatic works and poetry, it is often introduced by the word "O" (not to be confused with the exclamation "oh").
It is related to personification, although in apostrophe, objects or abstractions are implied to have certain human qualities (such as understanding) by the very fact that the speaker is addressing them as he would a person in his presence.
Apostrophe is often used to convey extreme emotion, as in Claudius's impassioned speech in Hamlet. [1]
Examples
• "Where, O death, thy sting? where, O death, thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:55, traditionally attributed to Saint Paul
• "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?" Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2
• "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! / Thou art the ruins of the noblest man / That ever lived in the tide of times." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1
Euphemism
A euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener,[1] or in the case of doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker. It also may be a substitution of a description of something or someone rather than the name, to avoid revealing secret, holy, or sacred names to the uninitiated, or to obscure the identity of the subject of a conversation from potential eavesdroppers. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse.
Common examples
Other common euphemisms include:
• curvy, fluffy, full-figured or heavy-set instead of 'fat'
• lost their lives for 'were killed'
• wellness for benefits and treatments that tend to only be used in times of sickness
• restroom for toilet room in American English (the word toilet was itself originally a euphemism)
• a love of musical theatre, good fashion sense or confirmed bachelor for male homosexuality
• woman in sensible shoes for lesbian
Hyperbole
Hyperbole comes from ancient Greek "ὑπερβολή" (meaning excess or exaggeration) and is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is rarely meant to be taken literally.Hyperbole is used to create emphasis. It is a literary device often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. It is also a visual technique in which a deliberate exaggeration of a particular part of an image is employed. An example is the exaggeration of a person's facial feature in a political)
.
Examples
Some examples of use of hyperbole include:
• This cat smells like a year's worth of spoiled milk! ( The cat smells bad )
• These books weigh a ton. (These books are heavy.)
• I could sleep for a year. (I could sleep for a long time.)
• The path went on forever. (The path was really long.)
• He beat him into a pulp. (He beat him up very harshly.)
• He must have jumped a mile. (He jumped very high into the air.)
Irony
Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning hypocrisy, deception, or feigned ignorance) is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what one says or does and what one means or what is generally understood. Irony is a mode of expression that calls attention to the character's knowledge and that of the audience.
There is argument about what qualifies as ironic, but all senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity between what is expressed and what is intended, or between an understanding or expectation of a reality and what actually happens: the literal truth is in direct discordance to the perceived truth.
Metaphor
Metaphor (from Latin metaphoria; see the Greek origin below), is a figure of speech and or phrase that one word as being or equal to a second object in some way. This device is known for usage in literature, especially in poetry, where with few words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with objects and entities in a different context. It compares two subjects without using 'like' or 'as'. Compared to simile, the metaphor takes us one step further than the simile. Instead of asking us to picture one thing as being like another, the metaphor asks us to picture one thing as being the other. The term derives from Greek μεταφορά (metaphora), or "transference"[1], from μεταφέρω (metaphero) "to carry over, to transfer"[2] and that from μετά (meta), "between"[3] + φέρω (phero), "to bear, to carry".[4]
Examples:
"The couch is the autobahn of the living room."
"That throws some light on the question." Throwing light is a metaphor and there is no actual light.
"He has the wild stag's foot." This phrase suggests grace and speed as well as daring.
Metonymy
Metonymy (pronounced /mɨˈtɒnɨmi/) is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept.[1]
The word "metonymy" comes from the Greek: μετωνυμία, metōnymía, "a change of name", from μετά, metá, "after, beyond" and -ωνυμία, -ōnymía, a suffix used to name figures of speech, from ὄνῠμα, ónyma or ὄνομα, ónoma, "name.Metonymy can involve the use of the same word, in which case it is a kind of polysemy, in which a single word has multiple related meanings (sememes), i.e. a large semantic field.Metonymy may be instructively contrasted with metaphor. Both figures involve the substitution of one term for another. In metaphor, this substitution is based on similarity, while in metonymy, the substitution is based on contiguity.
Oxymoron
An oxymoron (plural oxymora (greek plural) or, more often, oxymorons)("sharply dull" in Greek) is a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms. They appear in a range of contexts, from inadvertent errors such as extremely average, to deliberate puns like same difference, to literary oxymorons that have been carefully crafted to reveal a paradox.
Example:
"And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."
Less often seen is noun-verb combinations such as the line
"The silence whistles"
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia or onomatopœia, from the Greek ὀνοματοποιία (ὄνομα for "name" and ποιέω for "I make"), is one or more words that imitate or suggest the source of the sound they are describing. Common occurrences include animal noises, such as "oink" or "meow" or "roar". Onomatopoeia are not universally the same across all languages; they conform to some extent to the broader linguistic system they are part of; hence the sound of a clock may be tick tock in English and tik tak in D • In the Garfield comic strip and television series, there is a running gag about a "splut," which is usually the sound of a pie hitting someone in the face.
Examples:
• For example, Garfield once kicked Odie, but instead of 'kick' it said 'blagoonga', with Garfield remarking to Jon that Odie needs to be tuned
• The late MAD Magazine cartoonist Don Martin often used such words in his artwork, to comic effect.utch or tic-tac in French.
Paradox
A paradox is a statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition; or, it can be an apparent contradiction that actually expresses a non-dual truth (cf. Koan, Catuskoti). Typically, either the statements in question do not really imply the contradiction, the puzzling result is not really a contradiction, or the premises themselves are not all really true or cannot all be true together. The word paradox is often used interchangeably with contradiction. Often, mistakenly, it is used to describe situations that are ironic.
The recognition of ambiguities, equivocations, and unstated assumptions underlying known paradoxes has led to significant advances in science, philosophy and mathematics. But many paradoxes, such as Curry's paradox, do not yet have universally accepted resolutions.
Sometimes the term paradox is used for situations that are merely surprising. The birthday paradox, for instance, is unexpected but perfectly logical. The logician Willard V. O. Quine distinguishes falsidical paradoxes, which are seemingly valid, logical demonstrations of absurdities, from veridical paradoxes, such as the birthday paradox, which are seeming absurdities that are nevertheless true.[1] Paradoxes in economics tend to be the veridical type, typically counterintuitive outcomes of economic theory. In literature a paradox can be any contradictory or obviously untrue statement, which resolves itself upon later inspection.
Personification
Personification is an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person.[1]
The term "personification" may apply to:
1. A description of an inanimate object as being a living person or animal as in: "The sun shone brightly down on me as if she were shining for me alone". In this example the sun is depicted as if capable of intent, and is referenced with the pronoun "she" rather than "it."
2. The act of personifying.
3. A certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification: "He's invisible, a walking personification of the Negative" (Ralph Ellison).
4. An artistic representation of an abstract quality or idea as a person, for example the four cardinal virtues or nine Muses.
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the word "like" or "as".[1] Even though similes and metaphors are both forms of comparison, similes allow the two ideas to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas metaphors compare two things without using "like" or "as". For instance, a simile that compares a person with a bullet would go as follows: "John was a record-setting runner and as fast as a speeding bullet." A metaphor might read something like, "John was a record-setting runner. That speeding bullet could zip past you without you even knowing he was there."
A mnemonic for a simile is that "a simile is similar or alike."
Similes have been widely used in literature for their expressiveness as a figure of speech:
• Curley was flopping like a fish on a line.[2]
• The very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric.[3]
• Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.[4]
Synecdoche
Synecdoche (pronounced /sɪˈnɛkdəki/ si-NEK-də-kee; from Greek synekdoche (συνεκδοχή), meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which:
• a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing (Pars pro toto), or
• a term denoting a thing (a "whole") is used to refer to part of it (Totum pro parte), or
• a term denoting a specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class, or
• a term denoting a general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class, or
• a term denoting a material is used to refer to an object composed of that material.
Examples
• Examples where a part of something is used to refer to the whole:
o "50 head of cattle" refers to 50 complete cattle (who might be herded by a ranch "hand".)
o "His parents bought him a new set of wheels [car]."
o "All hands on deck."
o "The price of the meal is set at twenty pounds per head."
Understatement
Understatement is a form of speech in which a lesser expression is used than what would be expected. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression.
Understatement is a staple of humor in English-speaking cultures, especially in British humour. For example, in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, a suburban dinner party is invaded by Death, who wears a long black cloak and carries a scythe. He is the Grim Reaper; the party is over; the guests must all go with him. "Well," says one party guest, "that's cast rather a gloom over the evening, hasn't it?" In another scene, an Army officer has just lost his leg. When asked how he feels, he looks down at his bloody stump and responds, "Stings a bit."
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Parts of Speech Table
| part of speech | function or "job" | example words | example sentences |
| Verb | action or state | (to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must | EnglishClub.com is a web site. I like EnglishClub.com. |
| Noun | thing or person | pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John | This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live in London. |
| Adjective | describes a noun | a/an, the, 69, some, good, big, red, well, interesting | My dog is big. I like big dogs. |
| Adverb | describes a verb, adjective or adverb | quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really | My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly. |
| Pronoun | replaces a noun | I, you, he, she, some | Tara is Indian. She is beautiful. |
| Preposition | links a noun to another word | to, at, after, on, but | We went to school on Monday. |
| Conjunction | joins clauses or sentences or words | and, but, when | I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs but I don't like cats. |
| Interjection | short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence | oh!, ouch!, hi!, well | Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don't know. |
* Some grammar sources categorize English into 9 or 10 parts of speech. At EnglishClub.com, we use the traditional categorization of 8 parts of speech. Examples of other categorizations are:
- Verbs may be treated as two different parts of speech:
- Lexical Verbs (work, like, run)
- Auxiliary Verbs (be, have, must)
- Determiners may be treated as a separate part of speech, instead of being categorized under Adjectives
Thursday, June 25, 2009
group 3
Member's:
Jullo Andal
Euvel Baylon
Ron Borbe
Tyrone Chica
Christopher De Vera
JoHn Kenneth Llorca
Julieto Tagalog
Anjanette Baisa
Leira Hubilla
Joan Ocampo
Euvel Baylon
Ron Borbe
Tyrone Chica
Christopher De Vera
JoHn Kenneth Llorca
Julieto Tagalog
Anjanette Baisa
Leira Hubilla
Joan Ocampo
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