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.

basic formula of antithesis: X is Y, and not X is not Y.

For though one antithesis is grand, a long list of antitheses is divine, and is technically known as a progressio. It was a favourite of God and Dickens:

Merism is when you don’t say what you’re talking about, and instead name all of its parts. Ladies and gentlemen, for example, is a merism for people, because all people are either ladies or gentlemen.

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.

This does not fit either of the three usual reasons for aposiopesis: that you can’t go on, that you don’t need to go on, or that you want to leave the audience hanging.

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.

when you repeat a word with a different vowel, the order is always I A O. Bish bash bosh.

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, whether they’re written by a saint or uttered by a small green alien.

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.

But with the doubling of anadiplosis, it feels like an inevitable progress.

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