How many of these rhetorical devices do ...
In an election year, it’s tough to tune out all the pervasive and invasive political messaging. It’s on social media, newsfeeds, TV, radio, pop-up ads that you can’t close fast enough. Although I’m not particularly interested in politics, I am intrigued by the ways candidates use rhetorical devices in their messages. Many of us are familiar with the more common rhetorical devices, such as hyperbole, allusion and analogy; others are more obscure. Next time you hear a political message, see if you detect any of these rhetorical devices. 1. Allusion— an indirect or...
Beware of fallen rocks: a wording conund...
There’s no easy way to admit this: Sometimes I obsess about word use in the most ridiculous ways. A recent example of this involves a road sign that I pass every day on my commute. The sign says “Fallen rocks,” and it’s on a section of highway surrounded by short cliffs. Over the years, rocks and boulders have fallen from the cliffs, and those rocks and boulders now sit on the side of the road. Occasionally, rocks will still fall from the cliffs, so the sign is there to warn motorists. The issue I have—as well as the reason I’m writing this post—is that I...
29 interesting word pairs that differ by...
During a recent trip with my kids, we started playing word games to pass the time in the airport and on the plane. A new game we came up with was to start naming pairs of words that differ by only one letter. We came up with quite a few simple word pairs, such as cat/bat; rate/date; purr/pure. But the game made me wonder about longer word pairs and how the one-letter difference changed the meanings in interesting ways. After several searches through online dictionaries, Scrabble dictionaries, blogs, and an article from Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics,*...
