Chiasmus: The Crisscross Figure of Speech

We repeat what we remember,
and remember what we repeat.

If you want to leave your audience with something to remember the next time you write or give a speech, try employing the Power of X: chiasmus.

Chiasmus (pronounced kye-AZ-muss) is the crisscross figure of speech: a verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first with the parts reversed.

The term may not be familiar, but trust me, you know this proverbial device by heart:

• The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.


• When the going gets tough, the tough get going.


• The secret of life is not to do what you like but to like what you do.


• I am stuck on Band-Aid, and Band-Aid's stuck on me.

Then there's that unforgettable chiasmus from John Kennedy's inaugural address:

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.

Less memorable (and also less felicitous) is the chiasmus unloaded by Richard Nixon in his second inaugural address: "In our own lives, let each of us ask--not just what will government do for me, but what can I do for myself."

Antimetabole and the Reversible Raincoat

Journalist Calvin Trillin's nickname for the sly device is the "reversible raincoat." A critic reviewing a book by Clive James called it his "rhetorical circus trick." And David McKie, a veteran writer for England's Guardian newspaper, noted that chiasmus sounds more like a medical condition than a figure of speech: "I'm afraid you've got a touch of chiasmus there, Mrs. Bandicoot."

Some rhetoricians insist that a more accurate name for the figure is antimetabole (from the Greek "turning about in the opposite direction"). But because chi represents the letter X in the Greek alphabet, chiasmus serves as an excellent all-purpose term for reversals.

The Chiastic Tradition

As Dr. Mardy Grothe points out in his delightful book Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You (Viking, 1999), chiasmus has a rich heritage:

It shows up in ancient Sanskrit, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian texts. It appears in ancient Chinese writings, including the Analects of Confucius. It was an integral feature of ancient Hebrew poetry and is common in both the Old and New Testaments. To the Greeks, though, chiasmus held a special fascination, as Greek sages and orators strove to outdo one another's classic creations.

Of the hundreds of chiastic quotations in Grothe's book, some appear wise, others are just amusing:

• The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.
  (Alfred North Whitehead)


• The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.
  (Peter De Vries)


• It's not the men in my life; it's the life in my men.
  (Mae West)


• This isn't a bar for writers with a drinking problem; it's for drinkers with a writing problem.
  (Judy Joice, speaking about the Lion's Head tavern in Greenwich Village)


• Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
  (Jacquelyn Small)

A Tacit Persuasion Pattern

Rhetorician Richard Lanham calls this sort of verbal judo a "tacit persuasion pattern": "Shapes, either sound patterns or sight patterns, often seem to bring with them their own kind of illogical persuasion, . . . irrespective of their content. A great deal of persuasion occurs in this way and most of it remains tacit, unacknowledged" (Analyzing Prose, 2003).

Put another way, a chiasmus may sound profound even when it's not--a point illustrated in this exchange between Mr. Furious and the chiastically inclined Sphinx in the Ben Stiller comedy Mystery Men:

The Sphinx: He who questions training, only trains himself in asking questions. . . . Ah yes, work well on your new costumes my friends, for when you care for what is outside, what is inside cares for you. . . . Patience, my son. To summon your power for the conflict to come, you must first have power over that which conflicts you.

Mr. Furious: Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings just a little bit formulaic? "If you want to push something down, you have to pull it up. If you want to go left, you have to go right." It's . . .

The Sphinx: Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage . . .

Mr. Furious: . . . your rage will become your master? That's what you were going to say. Right? Right?

The Sphinx: Not necessarily.
(Wes Studi and Ben Stiller in Mystery Men, 1999)

The beauty of chiasmus, you see, is that even meaningless sounds can sound meaningful if crisscrossed in just the right way. That's the Power of X.