The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase

by Mark Forsyth

A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely. That is the one and only difference between the poet and everybody else.

he decided to add a footnote apologising for his paroemion (that’s the technical name for excessive alliteration).

“Please Please Me”2 is a classic case of polyptoton. The first please is please the interjection, as in “Please mind the gap.” The second please is a verb meaning to give pleasure, as in “This pleases me.” Same word: two different parts of speech.

It’s still polyptoton if the words have a close etymological connection, or are just different parts of the same verb, which means that “All You Need is Love”5 is pretty much polyptoton beginning to end:

But in essence antitheses are simple: first you mention one thing: then you mention another.

Merism is when you don’t say what you’re talking about, and instead name all of its parts.

“night and day” is a merism for always.

Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them . . . The Oxford English Dictionary contains the word quaquaversally meaning in every direction. “Cannon quaquaversally” would have saved time, but wouldn’t have been nearly as poetic,

Merism searches for wholes, and leaves holes. Thus the most awkward and derided poetic figure is the extended merism, the dismemberment of the loved one: the blazon.

When poets fall in love, they make a list of their loved one’s body parts and attach similes to them.

Synaesthesia is either a mental condition whereby colours are perceived as smells, smells as sounds, sounds as tastes, etc., or it is a rhetorical device whereby one sense is described in terms of another.

Aposiopesis is when . . . Aposiopesis is . . . Aposiopesis . . . All of the above is technically true, as aposiopesis is signalled in English punctuation by three dots.

Hyperbaton is when you put words in an odd order, which is very, very difficult to do in English.

adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun.

Have you ever heard that patter-pitter of tiny feet? Or the dong-ding of a bell? Or hop-hip music? That’s because, when you repeat a word with a different vowel, the order is always I A O.

Any phrasal verb in the imperative has to end with a preposition. Otherwise, you’d shout “Out look! Down get!

Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage . . . Which is a) hyperbaton because make should come between not and a, b) technically untrue and c) quoted so much that it has become part of the language.

It is the anadiplosis, the repetition of the last word of one clause as the first word of the next, that gives both lines their power,

Anadiplosis gives the illusion of logic. Like a conquering general it arrives at a word, plants a flag there, and then moves on. By doubling down it makes everything seem strong, structured and certain.

the periodic sentence is simply a very big sentence that is not complete until the end.

Using lots of conjunctions is called polysyndeton. No conjunctions is called asyndeton.

the American Film Institute rates it as the 22nd greatest line in all cinema (how they can be so precise, I don’t precisely know). Another poll had it as the best-loved one-liner in the history of film. This is, if you think about it, peculiar. The content of the line, for what it’s worth is . . . well . . . that he’s called James Bond.

Diacope (pronounced die-ACK-oh-pee) is a verbal sandwich: a word or phrase is repeated after a brief interruption. You take two Bonds and stuff James in the middle. Bingo. You have a great line.

Epiplexis is a more specific form of this where a lament or an insult is asked as a question. What’s the point? Why go on? What’s a girl to do? How could you? What makes your heart so hard?

Hypophora is a rhetorical question that is immediately answered aloud, usually by the person who asked.

The principle of hendiadys is easy. You take an adjective and a noun, and then you change the adjective into another noun. So instead of saying “I’m going to the noisy city” you say “I’m going to the noise and the city.”

When you end each sentence with the same word, that’s epistrophe. When each clause has the same words at the end, that’s epistrophe. When you finish each paragraph with the same word, that’s epistrophe. Even when it’s a whole phrase or a whole sentence that you repeat, it’s still, providing the repetition comes at the end, epistrophe.

You can always, always connect two dots with a straight line. But add another word and they’re tricolons. Eat, drink and be merry. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Truth, justice and the American way. With a tricolon you can set up a pattern and then break it.

Epizeuxis (pronounced ep-ee-ZOOX-is) is repeating a word immediately in exactly the same sense.

Syllepsis is when one word is used in two incongruous ways.

Roses are red. Violets are blue. That, at its simplest, is isocolon. Two clauses that are grammatically parallel, two sentences that are structurally the same.

Assonance is repeating a vowel sound: deep heat or blue moon. It is, I’m afraid, the thin and flimsy cousin of alliteration.