DO NOW Wednesday 10/17

• What was your response to the debates last evening between Governor Romney and President Obama?

• If you didn’t watch the debates, here’s a clip of the first question about college students and employment.

• Who won the debate in your opinion?

What is Rhetoric?• Aristotle defines it as “The art of observing, in

any given case, the available means of persuasion.”

Rhetorical TriangleSpeaker or Writer

Audience Subject

Asyndeton:• A condensed form of expression in which

elements customarily joined by conjunctions are presented in series without conjunction. The parts are emphasized equally when the conjunction is omitted; in addition, the use of commas with no intervening conjunctions speeds up the flow of the sentence.

“veni, vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered.)

Julius Caesar

“…government of the people, by the people, for the people…”

Abraham Lincoln

Polysyndeton:

• The use of more conjunctions than is normal. This strategy stresses equally each member of the series. It makes the sentence slower and the items more emphatic than in the asyndeton.

“…pursues his way,And swims, or sinks, or wades, or

creeps, or flies.”

Milton from Paradise Lost

Anaphora:• Repetition of a word, phrase, or

clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. This is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer’s point more coherent.

“We cannot dictate-we cannot consecrate- we cannot hallow this ground.”

Abraham Lincoln

Anecdote:

• A brief account of some interesting or entertaining and often humorous incident. Lacking the complexity of the short story, an anecdote simply relates a particular episode or event that makes a single point.

Syntax

• The arrangement – the ordering, grouping, and placement – of words within a sentence.

• Syntax has also been viewed as one of the two components of diction (the other being vocabulary).

EXAMPLE:

“I rode across the meadow.”

Vs.

“Across the meadow rode I.”

Synecdoche

• (suh-NEK-duh-kee)• A figure of speech in which a part of

something is used to represent the whole

EXAMPLE:

• Referring to a car as “wheels”• “We hope everyone will lend a

hand in completing this project.”

Litotes ( Lie-Ta-Tees) or (Lie-Toe-

Tees)• A form of understatement in

which a thing is affirmed by stating the negative of its opposite

• Authors often use litotes to achieve an ironic effect

EXAMPLE• The test was “not bad.”• A few unannounced quizzes are not

inconceivable.• War is not healthy for children and other

living things.• One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole

day.

Euphemism

• A device (figure of speech) in which indirectness replaces directness of statement, usually in an effort to avoid offensiveness

Euphemism

• “senior citizens” vs. “old people”• “in the family way” vs “pregnant• “rest room” vs. “toilet”• “pass away” vs. “die”