Rhetorical Glossary ( Mike Green)

use of two words connected by a conjunction, instead of subordinating one to the other, to express a single complex idea. It sure is nice and cool today! (for "pleasantly cool") I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Psalms 116 Perfecti oratoris moderatione et sapientia. Cicero, De oratore

("exchanging") transferred epithet; grammatical agreement of a word with another word which it does not logically qualify. More common in poetry. Exegi monumentum aere perennius regalique situ pyramidum altius, Horace, Odes III.30

separation of words which belong together, often to emphasize the first of the separated words or to create a certain image. Speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem Vergil, Aeneid 4.124, 165

exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow; An hundred years should got to praise Thine eyes and on thine forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest. Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress" Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum. Catullus, to his.

inversion of the natural sequence of events, often meant to stress the event which, though later in time, is considered the more important. "I like the island Manhattan. Smoke on your pipe and put that in." -- from the song "America," West Side Story lyric by Stephen Sondheim (submitted per litteram by guest rhetorician Anthony Scelba) Put on your shoes and socks! Hannibal in Africam redire atque Italia decedere coactus est. Cicero, In Catilinam