Quiz on Commonly Confused Figures of Speech

Once you've mastered the Top 20 Figures of Speech, you're ready to begin learning some of the other figures in our Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis. But keeping the terms straight can be a bit tricky.

This review quiz should help you to remember and distinguish the names of some of the less well-known but still important figures of speech.

For each quotation below, choose the one rhetorical concept that is most clearly illustrated by the short passage. (To review a definition, simply click on the term to visit the appropriate page in our Glossary of Grammatical & Rhetorical Terms.) When you're done, compare your answers with those at the bottom of this page.

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1. "For your own sake, I'll be blunt. Why do the Bosses keep ducks? To eat them. So why do the Bosses keep a pig? The fact is that animals that don't seem to have a purpose really do have a purpose. The Bosses have to eat. It's probably the most noble purpose of all, when you come to think about it."
   (Cat in Babe, 1995)
   a. hypophora
   b. epizeuxis
   c. aposiopesis
   d. ecphonesis



2. "'We pulled ten pounds [of truffles] in one hour,' he says, 'not a bad day's work, at $500 a pound.'"
   (Jessica Maxwell, "You: Truffle Baron," in Forbes, January 10, 2005)
   a. commoratio
   b. epizeuxis
   c. aposiopesis
   d. litotes



3. "When you are old and gray and full of sleep
   And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
   And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
   Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep."
   (William Butler Yeats, "When You Are Old")
   a. asyndeton
   b. epizeuxis
   c. polysyndeton
   d. antithesis



4. "I'm melting! I'm melting! Ohhhhh . . . What a world! What a world!"
   (The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, 1939)
   a. analogy
   b. epizeuxis
   c. polysyndeton
   d. distinctio



5. "What is the hardest sport? It depends what you mean by 'hardest.' If you mean 'skills,' then baseball for sure. If you mean 'physically challenging,' I'd say boxing."
   a. analogy
   b. parenthesis
   c. distinctio
   d. ecphonesis



6. "Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
   (Spinoza)
   a. asyndeton
   b. ecphonesis
   c. polyptoton
   d. polysyndeton



7. "Lions and tigers and bears! Oh, my!"
   (Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, 1939)
   a. hypophora
   b. simile
   c. aposiopesis
   d. ecphonesis



8. "Good, excellent, superior, above par, nice, fine, choice, rare, priceless, unparagoned, unparalleled, superfine, superexcellent, of the first water, crack, prime, tip-top, gilt-edged, first-class, capital, cardinal, couleur de rose, peerless, matchless, inestimable, precious as the apple of the eye, satisfactory, fair, fresh, unspoiled, sound--GKN: over 80 companies making steel and steel products."
   (advertising slogan of Guest, Keen, & Nettlefolds, 1962)
   a. commoratio
   b. personification
   c. zeugma
   d. antithesis



9. "For the butterfly, mating and propagation involve the sacrifice of life; for the human, the sacrifice of beauty."
   (Schopenhauer)
   a. epanalepsis
   b. ellipsis
   c. aposiopesis
   d. oxymoron



10. "But his mind was above such a thought, and wholly employed in weeping, condoling, and comforting. He catches her in his arms. The fire surrounds them while--I cannot go on."
    (Richard Steele, 1709)
    a. catachresis
    b. litotes
    c. aposiopesis
    d. epiplexis



11. "To be nobody-but-yourself--in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else--means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
    (e. e. cummings)
    a. personification
    b. parenthesis
    c. metonymy
    d. erotesis



12. "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
    And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"
    (Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus)
    a. synechdoche
    b. epanalepsis
    c. litotes
    d. hypophora



13. "The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope."
    (Samuel Johnson)
    a. epanalepsis
    b. simile
    c. erotesis
    d. antithesis



14. "Mock mockers after that
    That would not lift a hand maybe
    To help good, wise or great
    To bar that foul storm out, for we
    Traffic in mockery."
    (William Butler Yeats, "Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen")
    a. parenthesis
    b. ecphonesis
    c. zeugma
    d. polyptoton



15. "Sits he on ever so high a throne, a man still sits on his bottom."
    (Montaigne)
    a. commoratio
    b. antanaclasis
    c. hyperbole
    d. understatement



16. "To see him [Stephen Spender] fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sevres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee."
    (Evelyn Waugh)
    a. erotesis
    b. epiplexis
    c. analogy
    d. simile
    
    

Answers:

1. a. hypophora
2. d. litotes
3. c. polysyndeton
4. b. epizeuxis
5. c. distinctio
6. a. asyndeton
7. d. ecphonesis
8. a. commoratio
9. b. ellipsis
10. c. aposiopesis
11. b. parenthesis
12. a. synechdoche
13. d. antithesis
14. d. polyptoton
15. b. antanaclasis
16. c. analogy