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Figures of Speech: 60 Ways To Turn A Phrase

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Professor Quinn's slim volume is perhaps the best treatment of the subject of rhetorical devices that I have ever read. I say "best," not because it is the most extensive, nor because it is the most detailed coverage of the subject. I say "best" because I feel it is the most *useful* coverage I have ever encountered.

In concise fashion, Professor Quinn takes the reader through many of the most common figures of speech, tells us the formal names, and provides numerous illustrative examples.

It is true that simply knowing the name given to a particular turn of phrase will not guarantee that one can effectively employ it in one's writing. Nevertheless knowing the
forms and having names to identify them makes it easier to see them in use in the writing of others. By thus making them memorable, they also become a more ready part of one's writing toolkit.

The engaging and entertaining style which Quinn uses throughout the book makes even the most daunting technical terms readily accessible. His well-chosen examples are also entertaining and informative, and most are quite memorable. I can't be certain that merely reading this book will improve every reader's writing, but I believe that most folks will benefit from reading it.

"A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms" provides a more complete study, but "Figures of Speech" is more user-friendly, more entertaining, more compact, more useful. "Handlist" proved to be more scholarly, "Figures" more practical. "Handlist" arranges the figures alphabetically, "Figures" by type. "Handlist" gives a few examples, "Figures" many. I found the examples in "Figures" to be lyrical, the commentaries whimsical, the results educational.

If I were to design high school cirrculums, rhetoric and logic would be a required subject, perhaps titled (un)creatively as "Survival skills for the Real World or How Not to Be Duped"

Quinn's book Figures of Speech would be one quite satisfactory text. The strength of the book is in its examples, the variety of sources. For example, asyndeton in a series of nouns is illustrated by quotes from the scripture, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Arnold, Darwin, Proust ... He illustrates asyndeton in series of clauses; in series of nouns; at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence. He warns of the effect of overusing the figure ... in short, without ever become boring, he shows you how to flush out a hiding asyndeton anywhere.

For those of you not educated under my ideal plan - asyndeton is the omission of conjunctions. Okay, this particular figure of speech may not effect your gullibility but I happened to like the examples given.

This book is only introductory but as such it is excellent. It is sufficiently slender and diverse to provide basic information without intimidating the reader with the plethora of classical rhetorical devices.

I recommend this book for anyone who would like a few more clues on the many ways masterful sentences are put together. If you have the soul for good writing, but need a little more concrete guidance on how powerful phrases from the Bible to Virgil to Shakespeare to Churchill are constructed--this book will be a delightful teacher.

I was impressed by the lighthearted and humble approach of the author. Although he gives the formal (and quite forgettable) names for the figures of speech, he says he doesn't expect readers to remember the names, but rather to "taste" the examples he cites, and to get a feel for how to apply these patterns in their own writing. He repeatedly stresses that knowing how to use words and rhetorical patterns is far more important than memorizing their names or even agreeing upon their proper classifications.

The author also cites classics ancient and modern in making the unconventional and refreshing point that we need not slavishly follow the dictates of the now-popular rules of usage as promulgated by Strunk and White and other like-minded authorities. For example, while contemporary authorities repeatedly (yes, ironically) stress the importance of avoiding any unnecessary words, the author of Figures of Speech cites many passages from the Bible, Shakespeare, and other sources of distinction, that clearly do not follow such strictures--and choose elaboration and repitition over spare economy.

Overall, the book is informative, accessible, generous-spirited, and, in places, even humorous and playful.

When I got to the end of the slim volume I found myself wishing there was more.

Short, easy to read. Full of great examples. Will make you a better speaker and heighten your appreciation of great literature, as well as showing you the techniques used by playwrights, poets, politicians, lawyers, clergy, and all others who earn their bread with their tongues. An eye-opener.

"Figures of Speech: 60 ways to turn a phrase," by Arthur Quinn (Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley) is truly worth it's weight in gold. This book is not a stuffy academic classroom text...it is a sleek, extremely funny and stimulating resource that will undoubtedly add tremendous value to your knowledge of writing the "Queen's English." Moreover, Professor Quinn's book is super provocative, superbly written and succinct...allowing the reader to go cover to cover in a few short hours.

Quinn challenges the reader..."We are confronted, inescapably, with the intoxicating possibility that we can make language do for us almost anything we want." In other words, the author "thinks outside the box" long before it became fashionable to do so. I'll never forget a groundbreaking banner front-page headline in the New York Daily News back in the 1970's, it read, "We Wuz Robbed!" The headline reported that masked gunmen broke into the payroll office and stole millions in typical New York City lingo. Apparently the editors in the Daily News Building agreed with Quinn's approach to effective writing that "style, is like a frog: you can dissect the thing, but it somehow dies in the process."

Each chapter in this marvelous book is short and compact. My favorite chapters include, Missing Links and Headless Horsemen, Man Bites Dog and Reds in the Red. In a nutshell, Quinn demands that we navigate the jungles of style creatively and includes many figures of speech through out his book to stimulate the learning process. Overall, this book is a joy to read. In the words of the author, "language becomes a prison house only poets can escape...if we do not reject any strict distinctions between ordinary usage and figures of speech."

Bert Ruiz

What Strunk & White did for syntax, Arthur Quinn does for rhetoric in this slim delightful book. The 60 figures covered enable sentences to say more than they mean, resonating with the writer's intent. Through examples drawn from sources as diverse as Homer, the Bible, Shakespeare, Romantic poetry and Abraham Lincoln's speeches, Quinn shows that concepts like metonymy and synecdoche, far from being erudite, are pervasive in the best literature.

Anyone with an interest in effective writing will enjoy and benefit from this book.

I can't remember how I came upon this book or even how I got interested in the obscure realm of Classical figures of speech. Anyway, Quinn delivers a brief but effective introduction to this overlooked corner of the art of writing, and shows that much of basic Western literature, i.e. Shakespeare and the Bible, was written with generous use of the "formulas" of Classical figures of speech. Quinn maintains a casual, personable, non-academic tone, breathing life into what could be a dry and stuffy undertaking. It's not exhaustive, though, and, as another reviewer has pointed out, Lanham's "Handlist of Rhetorical Terms" is more extensive--though it is, as the title says, a list/glossary/dictionary, and so it not particularly useful to read cover-to-cover.

If Quinn's book whets your appetite for this kind of thing, you might get Lanham's book as a reference, but you also might want to try Brian Vickers' "Classical Rhetoric in English Poetry", which gives a history of the study and use of rhetoric from Greece to the Renaissance, including the figures of speech. Vickers' book is especially good in pointing out the need for understanding the emotional effects specific to particular figures of speech--then directing the reader to Book 9 of Quintilian's "The Orator's Education", which contains the most comprehensive study of this.

"Fair is foul and foul is fair."

"Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances."

"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you."

By now, you may have noticed the similarity among these three phrases: an inverse repetition of words. But you may not know this style has its own technical term (epanados). Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase, a tiny tome, lists and explains the technical terms of 60 such style devices.

Rooted in Latin, these terms are not important in that each and every one should be memorized. In fact, the author himself notes the foolishness of such a pursuit. But writers (and editors!) should know how to recognize them, and, ideally, experiment with them in their own writing.

Arthur Quinn does a solid job of explaining how to use these figures of speech. He provides brief definitions and illustrates them by listing examples from eminent writers and the Bible. However, I do have a few complaints. Sometimes Quinn glosses too quickly over a term, not giving it a full definition. He also often does not explain how his examples show a particular style device (it would be nice if he bolded them, when possible). Sure, sometimes the examples are self-explanatory but for the confusing concepts it would aid comprehension. His glossary is also a little erratic, sufficiently explaining one term while insufficiently explaining another.

Overall, however, Quinn has created a valuable resource for creative writers. It's a gem of a book in its brevity, and I wish another edition would come out to renew people's interest.

"Figures of Speech" sets itself apart from other guides to rhetorical devices by its use of quotations to illustrate the terms it defines. Citing the Bible, Shakespeare, and many other authors, Quinn shows the power, purpose and effect of each device.