"The confusion and darkness which has gathered about the term Figures of Speech, is the opprobrium of all teachers, and the dismay of all students of Rhetoric." So wrote Professor C. B. Bradley in "The Classification of Rhetorical Figures" (Modern Language Notes, Volume 1) back in December 1886. Though it's unlikely that today's teachers and students would either formulate or punctuate Bradley's observation in quite the same way, they'd have to agree: the figures of speech can still be pretty confusing.
A mishmash of Greek, Latin, and English terms, the figures have been recategorized and redefined by countless rhetoricians (and pedants) over the past 2,000 years. As a result, multiple terms often represent what's essentially the same figure of speech. The simple pun, for instance, also goes by the weightier names of antanaclasis, antistasis, and paronomasia. Unfortunately, well-intentioned efforts to simplify the terms have, in most cases, only compounded the confusion.
But let's not give up. Because the figures of speech remain powerful tools for communicating ideas and feelings, they deserve our attention. Since ancient times, the figures have served three main purposes:
- to instruct and entertain people through the play of language
- to persuade people of the truth or value of the message that a figure conveys
- to help people remember both the meaning of the message and its figurative expression
Our glossary of Figures and Tropes contains over 150 rhetorical terms--some of them similar in meaning (syllepsis and zeugma, for example), others similar in appearance (try epiplexis and epizeuxis). In an effort to reduce the confusion and put some of the fun back into studying the figures, we've prepared a number of short articles and review quizzes. Here are six of those pages, listed roughly in the order of increasing difficulty:
- Top 20 Figures of Speech
- Twenty Rhetorical Terms That We Never Learned in School
- Homer Simpson's Figures of Speech
- Review Quiz: Top 20 Figures of Speech
- Quiz on Figures of Speech in Advertising Slogans
- Quiz on Commonly Confused Figures of Speech
By the way, we're always on the lookout for fresh examples, so if you run across a good figure, please hit the "comments" button below and send it our way.
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