These figures of speech, which borrow their names from ancient Greek, may seem complicated at first glance.
Nevertheless, these processes are used much more than they let appear.
Le Figaro invites
you to look at five of these little-known or poorly known figures of speech, and yet so common in our discussions.
the zeugma
"
He missed his train and his chance to be on time for his interview
", or "
I buried my father and my carelessness at the same time
": here are examples of zeugmas that we find in life daily, without necessarily realizing it.
The zeugma is then defined as a stylistic process consisting in attaching to the same word two complements of different nature and which, taken one by one, give the central word a different meaning - concrete and abstract meaning for example.
Although this figure of speech is frequent in poetry (for example in Apollinaire with "
under the Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine and our loves
") we find it even more in everyday life with, again, sentences of the type "
I kissed this daughter and my wedding dreams
".
Read also
Five expressions that come to us from history
preterition
“
I don't want to say, but…
”, so common in our conversations that it has become unbearable, actually hides a little-known figure of speech.
Simple in its message, it consists of saying something by announcing not to say a word about it, which brings even more consistency to the subject.
From "
no need to introduce yourself...
" to "
this first play gives off a nameless smell in the language, and which should be called the smell of boarding school
" in
Le Père Goriot
, preterition most of the time takes on the appearance banal and anchored in our daily language.
Paronymy
“
Cheers, Étienne
” when two people clink glasses, “birds of a feather flock
together
” to speak of a strong duo, these expressions used as symbolic or popular sayings fall into the category of paronymies.
By reading the name only and then the examples, we understand that it is a figure adjoining two similar words: the paronymy puts side by side two words with similar sounds, which sound similar to the ear but differ in their meanings .
Stromae plays with this figure of speech in his song
Formidable
(2013): "
they were great, I was very shabby
".
But literature has not set it aside either: Rabelais also used paronymy through his "
science without conscience is only ruin of the soul
”.
Paronymy then often takes on the appearance of maxims, if not sometimes of morality.
antonomasia
If I tell you "to
be a Don Juan
" or "
an Apollo
", you would already guess the meaning of antonomasia.
It consists in fact of designating a character trait of a person by the first name of a known figure, from the urban world as well as from literature, or by a common name.
In the first case, it has the effect of magnifying the derided features: an adult still living with his parents and cataloged as a long-time bachelor therefore becomes a "
Tanguy
", a man stereotyped as clumsy or clumsy will be a "
Patrick
» .
While in the second case, a tissue is shortened to "
Kleenex
" or a dishwashing liquid product a "
Paic lemon
», even if it is not always lemon-scented.
Anadiplosis
“
Trois p'tits chats, straw hat, doormat…
” and the song goes on like this for a long time, building on series of anadiploses.
As you would have understood, anadiplosis is a figure of speech based on the repetition of the last word of a proposition, or the last syllable of a word, to start a new proposition.
By a doubling effect, she insists on the importance of the term, whether derisively (“
Isabelle has blue eyes, blue eyes Isabelle has
” from Unknowns) or not.
Anadiplosis also often serves a person in their speech, sometimes unintentionally, to pause their speech.