Definition:
An unfinished thought or broken sentence.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "maintaining silence"Examples:
- "I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall--I will do things--
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth!"
(William Shakespeare, King Lear) - "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist. . . ."
(Last words of General John Sedgwick, killed in battle during the U.S. Civil War) - "I won't sleep in the same bed with a woman who thinks I'm lazy! I'm going right downstairs, unfold the couch, unroll the sleeping ba--uh, goodnight."
(Homer Simpson in The Simpsons) - "Almira Gulch. Just because you own half the county doesn't mean that you have the power to run the rest of us. For 23 years I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now . . . well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!"
(Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz, 1939) - "Dear Ketel One Drinker--There comes a time in everyone's life when they just want to stop what they're doing and . . ."
(print ad for Ketel One vodka, 2007) - "[Aposiopesis] can simulate the impression of a speaker so overwhelmed by emotions that he or she is unable to continue speaking. . . . It can also convey a certain pretended shyness toward obscene expressions or even an everyday casualness."
(Andrea Grun-Oesterreich, "Aposiopesis," Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, edited by Thomas O. Sloane, Oxford University Press, 2001) - "All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps."
(James Joyce, Ulysses) - "And there’s Bernie layin’
On the couch, drinkin’ a beer
And chewin’--no, not chewin’--poppin’.
So I said to him,
I said, 'Bernie, you pop that
Gum one more time . . .'
And he did.
So I took the shotgun off the wall
And I fired two warning shots . . .
Into his head."
("Cell Block Tango," from Chicago, 2002)
Pronunciation: AP-uh-SI-uh-PEE-sis
Also Known As: interruptio, interpellatio
