Dear friends of the French language, compatriots of lyricism, lovers of alexandrines. We meet today to address the stormy question of figures of speech but not just any. Not the figures of style that we use every day without knowing it, not the figures of style that you need to know to get your baccalaureate… No. Today we are talking about the rarest figures, or at least those that no one knows. Farewell metaphor, comparison, understatement, and other zeugma.
1. La paronomase
This figure allows the use side by side of words which are very similar in pronunciation but which do not have the same meaning at all.
Example to reuse in everyday life: “Let’s not be bitter anymore and let’s cast off my love” (It’s mine. Hyper chiadé as an example, don’t you think? It’s obvious that I repeated my first L).
2. L’adynaton
Yes, he’s not only a very good rapper, he’s also a lesser-known figure of speech, even if it means something we do very often. In fact it’s just a hyperbole but to the power of 10 (don’t ask me why we don’t say “a super hyperbole”), a hyperbole so strong that it is no longer conceivable.
Example to reuse in everyday life: “I waited for you for 108 years for damn it” (indeed, if you had really waited 108 years, you would certainly have starved to death long before your recipient arrived).
3. Asyndetus
Simple as pie, this figure consists of removing the connecting elements in a sentence, which makes it possible to speed up the rhythm.
Example to reuse in the life of certain days: “I get up, eat a slice of bread, drink a coffee; 9 a.m.: I go out, get on my bike, take the first left, meet a cop, have me arrested; I’m wearing a helmet, he’s lining me up, 150 bullets in my sight, I’m pissed off, curse the cops, hit the road again, arrive late, the day starts badly” Yes well after I did not say that my examples were always exciting huh.
4. The aposiopèse
Well then you’re still going to complain because here we have a term that seems so complex that it fucks the female dog when it designates a basic figure. In summary, it is a simple hesitation, or a miscellaneous emotion that causes a break in the sentence.
Example to reuse in everyday life: “- Can you give me back my 50 balls Bernard? – Oh yes of course I… Watch out behind you! A giant celery! »
5. La syllepsis
Ideal when you like to confuse your readers, the syllepsis basically allows you to play on the polysemy of a word.
Example stolen from Molière because it was not half an idiot in Forced marriage : “And what language do you want to use with me? – Parbleu! of the tongue that I have in my mouth. I don’t think I’m going to borrow my neighbour’s. »
6. With diaphoresis
So here I can reassure you right away, in fact diaphore is nothing but a synonym for antanaclase. So, now it’s good I guess you see what we’re talking about. You necessarily know that it is a question of using the same word twice in a sentence but with a different meaning (yes yes, it looks a lot like syllepsis but it is not me who should be yelled at) like when one says ” The heart has its reasons that reason ignores “ (yes we say that).
Example to reuse in everyday life: “The bad pétanque player loses the boule and his boule”. Subtle isn’t it?
7. L’hypallage
As much the hyperpackaging is really bad, as much the hypallage is very nice. It is used to associate a word or a group of words with a meaning that corresponds to another word in the sentence. Do you have a headache? It’s normal, take a deep breath. We use this figure mainly for adjectives and the idea is to associate an adjective with an unexpected word in the sentence.
Example to reuse in life but only every other day: “I drank so much that my apartment was stuffed”or “I wrote my breakup letter with a guilty pen”or “I showed up at the office with bruised clothes from an unfortunate assembly”.
8. The tautogram
Nothing to do with Toto’s jokes since a tautogram simply consists of writing a sentence in which all the words begin with the same letter.
Example to reuse but not more than once a month: “If Sabine pisses her sister Suzanne on her sardines, Suzanne will crack down slyly” If you are not convinced by this example, trying to do better you will see it is a hassle.
9. Epanadiplosis
A charming name that we could give to our child if we really wanted to ruin his life with an original first name. It is quite simply a figure intended to produce an effect of insistence with a symmetry emphasizing a word or a group of words. Good. Said like that, it’s still pretty vague. But with a few examples you will see more clearly: ” Man is a wolf to man “ or to quote Jean Cocteau “Childhood knows what it wants, it wants out of childhood” or this excerpt from Le Chiendent by Raymond Queneau “The mother is finally ready; very elegant mother. »
Our example to us really less well: “Coffee is really strong coffee” (not sure I really understood this figure of speech but only God can judge me (or a spell checker).
10. The homeoteleute
Contrary to popular belief, the homeoteleute is not a venereal disease. In fact, it’s just using words whose last syllable is the same, a kind of prose rhyme if you will.
Example to reuse in everyday life: “Do I really look like I spat a mucus into your glass of Sancerre?” »
At the end of this top, I would only have one thing to say: I think that stylistic figures are the only elements that designate fairly simple things in the French language with ultra complex words. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t retain any of them, deep down you already know them all.
Sources : Common knowledge