Saturday, November 8, 2008

Election tropes

Only because of victory, the election now seems good to me. Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food. (metaphor) 

The Republican ticket had begun to sound like two skeletons copulating on a corrugated tin roof. (simile)  

And especially to Bush, I say Take thy face hence. (synedoche)  

With Bush bombing Iraq and Afghanistan and the suits on Wall Street walking off with everyone's 401K's the results of the election were a no-brainer. (metonymy).  

Is Mr. Bush a Christian? Christians believe in the prophets, peace be upon them. Bush believes in profits and how to get a piece of them. HIs policies are sound, nothing but sound. (antanaclasis).

When Bush spoke to us he raised neither his voice nor our hopes. He should have fixed the problems, not the blame. Now we hold our breath and the door for his exit. (syllepsis).  

I've been Republicaned all I can stand this election year. The whole country has been punked by this administration. And thus, until the change of administration, the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. (anthimeria).

How did we win? The big man upstairs must have heard our prayers. This socialism attack on Obama was misplaced. Just as was once said to Dan Quayle, "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy," we can say to Barack Obama, "Senator, you're no Eugene Debs." Would that he were. (periphrasis).

These last months of a Bush administration may be brutal.  He forgets:  Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. (prosopesis)

There did not seem to be brains enough in the oval office, so to speak, to bait a fishhook with. After the market fell and unemployment climbed, people moved slowly. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of our own neighborhoods.  (hyperbole).

Bush has left the nation somewhat worse for wear.  During his administration, I saw Lady Liberty flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her physical appearance.  (litotes)

What could the Republicans have been thinking?  Have we not eyes? have we not hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? (rhetorical question).

And so they brought us more wars. And our young people learned proud privileges as were learned by a young man of an earlier generation: "By Spring, if God was good, all the proud privileges of trench lice, mustard gas, spattered brains, punctured lungs, ripped guts, asphyxiation, mud and gangrene might be his." (irony)

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke. (onomatopoeia)

O miserable abundance. O beggarly riches. (oxymoron)

They led the people by following the mob. They lied to tell their truth. (paradox)

12 comments:

Stan said...

How tropical!

Anonymous said...

Bush attended a feast of languages and stole the scraps, but you, our dear but (alas) absent friend, attended the feast and bolted both the language and the Republicans. (Zeugma)

Well roared, Lion.

Anonymous said...

What in tarnation has happened to Tio Stapleton?
Has he fallen into a trough of South Texas English grammer or of
half-finished meta-amphetamine and gone completely bonkers. Does he not
know he is now on the other side of common sense and good conversation?
What is this stuff of skeletons copulating on corrugated tin roofs, of Bush
taking his face hence, and of forests beihg the lungs of our land? Ans
more! What? What? What?
I would say he has lost his mind in the South Texas heat of the Summer just
ended; it is particularly destructive of Northern G------ who stay too long
by the Rio Bravo . . . Come Home Yankee! There'll be someone here to help
you. Unfortunately, I cannot take the time from important matters and even
if I could, I probably have other things to do . . . perhaps Wright. After
all, it seems he added much to your demise of the week.
Well, this is his misfortune and none of my own . . .
grv

Anonymous said...

Are you smokin' crack or what?

Stan said...

Just re-read your tropes and you are sailing, my man, the other commentators not withstanding. I'm saying this is classic stuff and if English teachers ever take up rhetoric again (and therefore the world), these nicely wrought little gems will serve them well.

Anonymous said...

How about a few Ebonics sonnets.

Dan S. Boyd said...

Now I know what the people in Plan II must have been doing.

Anonymous said...

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

Anonymous said...

Get a new book on rhetorical devices? Idle minds are a devils workshop.(hendiadys)

Anonymous said...

conjunction junction -its my function! lol rock on Ed! Hope u and Kathy & fam are having a great Christmas

senorita laurita

Stan said...

Ed!

You are missed!

Anonymous said...

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.