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Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
Ellipses–Leaving out part of a sentence or an event by substituting it with ellipses is a stylistic element. It represents an omission of words which helps in advancing the story. Parentheses–It is technically used to separate and subordinate segments of a prose sentence. In poetry, parentheses draws attention to what is encased within them.
Uses of figurative language, or figures of speech, can take multiple forms, such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and many others. [12] Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature says that figurative language can be classified in five categories: resemblance or relationship, emphasis or understatement, figures of sound, verbal games, and errors.
The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective–noun combination of two words, but they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. One classic example of the use of oxymorons in English literature can be found in this example from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo strings together thirteen in a row: [11]
sentence A is X entails sentence A is not Y [3] An example of an incompatible pair of words is cat : dog: It's a cat entails It's not a dog [4] This incompatibility is also found in the opposite pairs fast : slow and stationary : moving, as can be seen below: It's fast entails It's not slow [5]
The latter of these is a result of Yiddish influences on modern English, especially East Coast US English. Sometimes editors and grammatical stylists will use "pleonasm" to describe simple wordiness. This phenomenon is also called prolixity or logorrhea. Compare: "The sound of the loud music drowned out the sound of the burglary."
Antiphrasis is the rhetorical device of saying the opposite of what is actually meant in such a way that it is obvious what the true intention is. [1] Some authors treat and use antiphrasis just as irony, euphemism or litotes. [2] When the antiphrasal use is very common, the word can become an auto-antonym, [3] having opposite meanings ...
Parataxis (from Greek: παράταξις, "act of placing side by side"; from παρα, para "beside" + τάξις, táxis "arrangement") is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple sentences, without conjunctions or with the use of coordinating, but not with subordinating conjunctions.