When we write or speak, we use, sometimes unknowingly, figures of speech. It is thanks to them that we manage to give strength to our discourse. They are widely used in rhetorical art to support our arguments. According to the Larousse, figures of speech give a particular form to the expression and aim to produce a certain effect on the interlocutor or the reader. They are an essential component of the style with any writer. Victor Hugo was fond of oxymorons and Molière's work is full of examples of figures of speech, he used in particular hyperbole. After the oxymoron and the litote, Le Figaro invites you to (re)discover the periphrase today.
To discover
- Crosswords, Sudoku, 7 Letters... Keep your mind awake with Le Figaro Jeux
"Expressing by circumlocution"
When we hear the word periphrase, we immediately think of several enlightening examples of what this figure of speech, darling of columnists and journalists, is. "The capital of Gaul" to designate Lyon, "the language of Shakespeare" to speak of English or "the king of animals" to qualify the lion. In concrete terms, what is periphrasing? According to what we can read on the Treasury of the French language, the etymology of the word tells us something about its function: it comes from the Latin "periphrasis", itself borrowed from the Greek "perifrasis" and derived from "periphrazein" which means "to express by circumlocution", from peri "around" and phrazein that is to say "to put in the mind, explain, to make understand".
The periphrase is therefore a "figure in which the proper and unique term is replaced by a pictorial or descriptive expression that defines or evokes it". In other words, it allows you to express in several words what could have been said in one. It avoids repetition, hence its massive use in the field of writing and journalism. Pierre Fontanier, a grammarian of the early nineteenth century, defined it as follows: "[it] consists in expressing in a roundabout, extensive, and ordinarily sumptuous way, a thought that could be rendered in a direct way and at the same time simpler and shorter." Not to be confused with the word "paraphrase" which consists in repeating in one's own words the ideas of an author, without changing the concept.
"Black gold", "golden fruit"...
If we want to embellish or highlight the characteristics of an object or a person - which we could not have described in a single word, we can also use periphrases. We will then speak of the "golden fruit" to designate the pear, of the "black gold" for oil, of the "small screen" for television. It is the same for people: "The Holy Father" to talk about the pope, "the soldiers of fire" to designate the firefighters or "the Sun King" to evoke the splendor of Louis XIV ...
It should be noted, however, that the periphrase is also used to "give a negative connotation", recalls Jean-Loup Chiflet, author of Balade littéraire among figures of style (Figaro littéraire). "I would be the Earth, I would not appreciate being called 'cow floor,'" writes the writer. Just as you can call your neighbor, whom you do not like, to your friends a "garden gnome". Or when we say "it's not the sharpest knife in the drawer" to say of someone that he is is not very clever, ironically ...
