Spicing up your writing is not just a matter of learning or knowing these. They need to be "felt". This is a large and complicated field and only some are referred to below:1. Imagery
a) metaphor: Substitution of one word for another
[Example: "the eye of heaven" for the sun]
b) simile: Explicit comparison
[Example: your eyes shine like the sun]
c) symbol: Concrete thing representing something abstract
[Example: the rose as a symbol of love; the cross as a symbol of Christian religion]
2. Devices that rely on the sound of the words
a) alliteration: Repetition of the first sound in two or more words
[Example: "A cold coming we had of it" T.S. Eliot; Journey of the Magi]
b) onomatopoeia: Sounds imitating the thing they refer to
[Example: The name cuckoo imitates the sound this bird makes]
3. Sentence construction
a) parallelism: The structure of successive sentences or phrases is the same
[Example: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. Winston Churchill]
b) anaphora: Obvious repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences.
[Example: " Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down, Though castles topple on their warders´ heads, Though palaces and pyramids do slope..." Shakespeare, Macbeth]
c) enumeration: A list of words, phrases or sub-clauses, usually employed to illustrate a comprehensive phrase or term by listing some of the elements it describes.
[Example: "I grant him bloody, luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful..." Shakespeare, Macbeth]
The enumeration may be in climactic order.
[Example: " ... businessmen who have lived five, ten, twenty years in
4. Various other stylistic devices
a) direct address: The author speaks directly to his reader – this device can often be recognized by the second person pronoun "you". The appeal to the reader may occasionally be intensified by the use of the imperative in direct address.
b) rhetorical question: The author asks his reader a "question", the answer to which is perfectly clear anyway. So its function is not that of a real question – it is to lead or force the reader into agreeing with the author´s views.
c) quotation: The quotation of experts, of public figures or from other texts serves to support the author´s ideas and lend them a higher degree of acceptability. (Sometimes an author may quote an "expert" who is not actually a specialist in the field the author is dealing with – this is known in classical rhetoric as an "argumentum ad verecundiam".)
d) allusion: The author does not quote directly from some other text – instead, he uses ideas, concepts and references from well-known texts or historical events in the hope that an educated reader will recognize them and see them as support for the author´s own ideas. One of the most common allusions is the biblical reference.
e) repetition of key words: An important idea or concept may be stressed by its repetition. The fairly simple trick is that the reader cannot help but realize that something must be important if it is mentioned often enough.
f) personification: The author speaks to an object or an abstract idea as if it were a person.
5. Devices that rely on features of the layout
Two features which should be mentioned here are:
a) capitalization: The author may choose to write nouns that he considers very important with a capital letter at the beginning. He may even use only capital letters in writing a key word.
b) italics: Printing words, phrases or even complete sentences in italics is one of the simplest and most effective ways of showing that they are important.
6. Two other specific devices
Zeugma is a device in which a verb or other part of speech is appropriate to a following word or phrase but is then also applied to a second (or even third) word or phrase, not strictly correctly but acceptably.
eg. She raised the blinds and [lifted] my spirits.
Syllepsis is like zeugma but the verb is used in a different way from the first to the second following word or phrase. This results in a humorous effect.
eg. He leaned heavily on the podium and stale jokes.
I don't know if giving out all these stylistic tips will improve our blogging or homogenise the offerings. Either way, I am grateful for being given the correct names for the things we do. And why has it taken me this long to find your fascinating weblink?
ReplyDeleteDuly noted sir. I learned three new things, so you see you can teach an old dog new tricks.
ReplyDeleteI hated grammar in school, but I shall be incorporating this into all of my posts. Will you be marking our offerings James? New comment from James "Too much alliteration and inapropriate use of anaphora and enumeration.... 6 out of 10. Will this give me a better Technorati ranking and what about my bloody Scottish heritage. I mean we talk and write funny.
ReplyDeleteOH God, Don't look at my writing anymore! :)
ReplyDeleteYou're very learned today, James. didn't know zeugma so I agree with jmb.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know the last two. In fact I am still not quite clear about the difference.
ReplyDeleteIt's not always clear. The latter is more heavily leaning towards the absurd, a situation where the second application is really only included as some sort of counterpoint whereas with zeugma, there may perhaps be no irony intended at all.
ReplyDelete