FIGURES OF SPEECH

Figure of Speech is departure from the ordinary form of expression, or the ordinary course of ideas in order to produce a greater effect.

Figure-of-Speech may be classified as under:

1. Those based on resemblance

* Simile

* Metaphor

* Personification

* Apostrophe

2. Those based on Contrast:

* Antithesis

* Epigram

3. Those based on Association:

* Metonymy

* Synecdoche

4. Thos depending on Construction:

* Climax

* Anticlimax     

A Metaphor is an implied Simile. It does not, like a Simile, state that one thing is like another or acts as another, but takes that for granted and proceeds as if two things were one.

Thus when we say, 'He fought as fiercely as a lion', it is Simile.

But when we say, 'He was a lion in the fight', it is Metaphor.

Examples:

* The camel is the ship of the desert.

* Life is a dream.

* The news was a dragger to his heart.

* Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

NOTE:

Every SIMILE can be compressed into a METAPHOR, and Every METAPHOR can be expanded into a SIMILE.

Examples:

* Richard fought as fiercely as a loin. (Simile)

* Richard was a lion in the fight. (Metaphor)

* The waves thundered on the shore. (Metaphor)

* The waves broke on the shore with noise like a thunder.

In Simile, a comparison is made between two object of different kinds which have at least one point in common.

The Simile is introduced by the word 'as…as'.

Examples:

* As active as quicksilver

* As afraid as a grasshopper * As afraid as a grasshopper

* As ageless as the sun

* As agile as a cat

* As agile as a monkey

* As alert as a bird

* As alike as two peas

* As alone as a leper

* As alone as Crusoe

* As ambitious as the devil

This Figure-of-Speech is widely used by us in our writings.

NOTE:

A comparison of two things of same kind is not a Simile. 

In Personification, inanimate objects and abstract notions are spoken of as having life and intelligence.
Examples:
* Death lays its icy hands on King.
* Pride goes forth on horseback, grand and gay.
* Laughter is holding her both sides. 
In Hyperbole, a statement is made emphatic by overstatement.
Examples: 
* Why, man, if the river is dry, I am able to fill it with tears.
* Hmalet! You have not cleft my heart in twain. 
An Apostrophe is a direct address to the dead, to the absent, or to a personified object or idea. This figure is a special form of Personification.
Examples: 
* Milton! You should not be living at this hour.
* Friend! I know not which way I must look for comfort.
* Roll on! Thou deep and dark blue ocean , roll.
* Death! Where is thy sting? O Grave! Where is thy victory? 

An Epigram is a brief pointed saying frequently introducing antithetical ideas which excite surprise and arrest attention.
Examples:
* The child is the father of the man.
* Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
* In the midst of life, we are in death.
* Art lies in concealing art.
* He makes no friend who never made a foe.
* A man can not be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
* The proper study of mankind is man. 
Euphemism consists in the description of a disagreeable thing by an agreeable name.
Examples:
* You are telling me a fairy tale. (You are telling me lies)
* He is gone to heaven. (He is dead) 
* Man proposes, but God disposes.

* Not that I loved Caesar less, but I loved Rome more.
* Speech is silver, but Silence is Gold.
* Many are called, but few are chosen.
* To err is human, but to forgive on divine. 

Oxymoron is special type of Antithesis, whereby two contradictory qualities are predicted at once of the same thing.

Examples:
* She accepted it as the kind cruelty of surgeon's knife.
* His honor rooted in dishonor stood.
* Faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
* So innocent arch, so cunningly simple. 

Irony is made of speech in which the real meaning is exactly the opposite of that which is literally conveyed.

Examples:

* No doubts but you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.

A figure of speech is a rhetorical device that achieves a special effect by using words in distinctive ways. Though there are hundreds of figures of speech, here we'll focus on just 20 of the most common figures.

The Top 20 Figures

1. Alliteration
   The repetition of an initial consonant sound.
2. Anaphora
   The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
3. Antithesis
   The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
4. Apostrophe
   Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
5. Assonance
   Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
6. Chiasmus
   A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
7. Euphemism
   The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
8. Hyperbole
   An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.
9. Irony
   The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.
10. Litotes
    A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.
11. Metaphor
    An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.
12. Metonymy
    A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it's closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.
13. Onomatopoeia
    The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
14. Oxymoron
    A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
15. Paradox
    A statement that appears to contradict itself.
16. Personification
    A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
17. Pun
    A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.
18. Simile
    A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.
19. Synecdoche
    A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (for example, ABCs for alphabet ) or the whole for a part (" England won the World Cup in 1966").
20. Understatement
    A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.