effectio Personal description; head-to-toe inventory of a person's charms. [from Latin effingere, "to fashion"] - Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 MY mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun Coral is far more red than her lips’ red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound: I grant I never saw a goddess go,— My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. ellipsis Omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the listener or reader. -"If youth knew, if age could." (Henri Estienne) -"True stories deal with hunger, imaginary ones with love." (Raymond Queneau) encomiumEulogy in prose or verse glorifying people, objects, ideas, or events. -"Farewell dear babe, my heart's too much content,/Farewell sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye, Farewell fair flower that for a space was lent,/Then ta'en away unto eternity. /Blest babe . . .."(Anne Bradstreet, "In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year and Half Old") energiaGeneric term for a visually powerful description that vividly recreates something or someone in words.-"Mornings, a transparent pane of ice lies over the meltwater. I peer through and see some kind of waterbug-perhaps a leech-paddling like a sea turtle between green ladders of lakeweed. Cattails and sweetgrass from the previous summer are bone dry, marked with black mold spots, and bend like elbows into the ice. They are swords that cut away the hard tenancy of winter. At the wide end a mat of dead waterplants has rolled back into a thick, impregnable breakwater. Near it, bubbles trapped under the ice are lenses focused straight up to catch the coming season." (Gretel Ehrlich, "Spring") enthymeme An informally stated syllogism with an implied premise. -"Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the crown. Therefore 'tis certain he was not ambitious." ( Julius Caesar III.ii) -"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow/Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be/Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow And soonest our best men with thee do go/Rest of their bones and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,/And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppies or charms can make us sleep as well/And better than thy stroke. Why swellst thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally,/And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!"(John Donne, "Holy Sonnet X") epanalepsis Repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause. -"Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,Possessed by what we now no more possessed." (Robert Frost, "The Gift Outright") epicrisis Circumstance in which a speaker quotes a passage and comments on it."When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone, whatever they [Vichy France] did, their generals told the Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.' [pause] Some chicken! [pause] Some neck!" (Winston Churchill to Canadian Parliament in WWII) epideictic One of Aristotle's major divisions of rhetoric: oratory that praises or blames.--" . . . ADAMS and JEFFERSON, I have said, are no more. As human beings, indeed, they are no more….” "No two men now live, fellow-citizen, perhaps it may be doubted whether any two men have ever lived in one age, who, more than those we now commemorate, have impressed on mankind their own opinions more deeply into the opinions of others, or given a more lasting direction to the current of human thought. Their work doth not perish with them. The tree which they assisted to plant will flourish, although they water it and protect it no longer; for it has struck its roots deep, it has sent them to the very centre; no storm, not of force to birth the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread wide; they stretch their protecting arms broader and broader, and its top is destined to reach the heavens. . . ."(Daniel Webster, "On the Occasion of the Deaths of Adams and Jefferson" 1826) epimone Frequent repetition of a phrase or question; dwelling on a point.-"Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him I have offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any speak; for him have I offended." (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar III.ii)) epiphora Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses. (Also known as epistrophe.) -"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as child." (I Corinthians 13.11) -“Success hasn’t changed Frank Sinatra. When he was unappreciated and obscure, he was hot-tempered, egotistical, extravagant, and moody. Now that he is rich and famous . . . he is still hot-tempered, egotistical, extravagant, and moody.”(Dorothy Kilgallen, 1959 newspaper column)-"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."(Bill Clinton) -“Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don’t give me the same idiot.” (Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish near New Orleans, speaking to CBS about FEMA Chief Michael Brown on Sep. 6, 2005) epiplexis Asking questions to reproach rather than to elicit answers. -"Have you no shame?"-"You think what I do is playing God, but you presume you know what God wants. Do you think that's not playing God?" (John Irving, The Cider House Rules) epithet Using an appropriate adjective (often habitually) to qualify a subject. -"heartfelt thanks," "wine-red sea," "blood-red sky," "fleet-footed Achilles," "stone-cold heart"-"The snotgreen sea. (James Joyce, Ulysses) epizeuxis Repetition of a word for emphasis (usually with no words in between). -"And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life!/Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,/Never, never, never, never! Pray you, undo this button." (William Shakespeare, King Lear, V.3) -"O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon." (Milton, Samson Agonistes, 80) -"Break, break, break /On thy cold gray stones, O Sea:" (Tennyson) -Waitress: Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Bloody vikings. You can't have egg, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam. Mrs. Bun: I don't like spam! Mr. Bun: Shh dear, don't cause a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it. I'm having spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam. (Monty Python, "The Spam Sketch") erotesis [erotema]Rhetorical question implying strong affirmation or denial.. -"Was I an Irishman on that day that I boldly withstood our pride?or on the day that I hung down my head and wept in shame and silence over the humiliation of Great Britain?"(Edmund Burke, Speech in the Electors of Bristol) -"II Kings 7:3 contains an example of the figure of speech erotesis. Four leprous men at the entering of the gate of the city asked: 'Why sit we here until we die?' The question was not asked for an answer but rather for effect. It means literally: 'There is no sense of our sitting around here until we die!' Erotesis - (rhetorical questions) - are used to emphasize the literal truth. By using this figure Jesus Christ put extra emphasis on his cry of triumph: THIS WAS MY DESTINY!"(M. Cortright, 1997) ethopoeia Putting oneself in place of another so as to both understand and express his or her feelings more vividly. (Pronunciation: "ee tho PO ee ya")-"I feel an extraordinary kinship with this aging statesman [Daniel Webster], this massive victim of pollinosis whose declining days sanctioned the sort of compromise that is born of local irritation. There is a fraternity of those who have been tried beyond endurance. I am closer to Daniel Webster, almost, than to my own flesh." (E. B. White, "The Summer Catarrh") ethos Persuasive appeal based on the projected character of the speaker or narrator. Ethical proof is proof that depends upon the good character or projected character of a rhetor. According to Aristotle, the chief components of a compelling ethos are good will, practical wisdom, and virtue. Distinctions are commonly made between situated ethos and invented ethos. [Gk. "Disposition, character"] euphemism Substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit. -"Ground beef" for "ground flesh of a dead cow"; "veal" for "tender dead flesh of a baby cow." -"Wardrobe malfunction" (Justin Timberlake's characterization of his tearing of Janet Jackson's costume during a half-time performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII) euphuism Elaborately patterned prose style, characterized by extensive use of simile and illustration, balanced construction, alliteration, and antithesis. Euphuism played an important role in English literary history by demonstrating the capabilities of English prose. "This young gallant, of more wit than wealth, and yet of more wealth than wisdom, seeing himself inferior to none in pleasant conceits, thought himself superior to all in honest conditions, insomuch that he thought himself so apt to all things that he gave himself almost to nothing; but practicing of those things commonly which are incident to these sharp wits: fine phrases, smooth quips, merry taunts, using jesting without mean and abusing mirth without measure. (John Lyly, from Euphues, 1579) exergasia Elaboration of a single idea in a series of figures of speech.-"I take thy hand--this hand, As soft as dove's down and as white as it,/Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow that's bolted By the northern blasts twice o'er." (Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale IV. iv) exuscitatio Emotional utterance that seeks to move hearers to a like feeling. -"He that outlives this day and comes safe home, Will stand a tiptoe when this day is named,/And rouse him at the name of Crispian,/He that shall live this day and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,/And say, 'Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.'/Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say, 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'/Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,/But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,/Familiar in his mouth as household words,/Harry the King, Belford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,/Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered./This story shall the good man teach his son:/And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,/From this day to the ending of the world,/But we in it shall be remembered; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;/For he today that sheds his blood with me/Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile This day shall gentle his condition:/And gentlemen in England, now abed/Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks/That fought with us upon Saint Crispian's day./(William Shakespeare, Henry V, IV.3)