What is a zeugme?
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This figure of speech has a very ugly name, whereas it can give rise to magnificent things like these verses from Apollinaire: "
Under the Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine / And our loves."
This
zeugme
, we also say
zeugma
, from the Greek
zeugma
(link), in fact designates a process which consists in making two disparate terms depend on the same word by implying an adjective or a verb already expressed.
For example, this sentence of Gide: "
He believed in his star and that a certain happiness was due to him
" or that of Musset: "
They know how to count the hour and that the earth is round.
"And what about this poem by Prévert entitled
Composition française
which begins as follows:"
Very young Napoleon was very thin / and an artillery officer / later he became emperor / so he took a belly and a lot of country ...
"except that the great Jacques handles the zeugme with humor?
Just like Pierre Dac when he explains to us that "
it is better to lend at 15% than to confuse
".
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