Figures of Speech Served Fresh

He’s not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.

 - Joe Biden, speaking of John McCain during the vice presidential debate

metonymy (meh-TON-y-my), the scale-changing trope.  From the Greek, meaning “name change.”

Candidate debates give Figaro the same ennui he feels watching most Super Bowls. Everybody is just so darn careful. Last night, the cliches flew like nobody’s business. The two candidates used the tired old “kitchen table” five times, for instance. 

Well, Figaro is so middle-class that his kitchen is too small for a table. Still, “kitchen table” makes a legitimate, if dusty, metonymy—a trope that takes a little thing and makes it represent big things (White House = presidency; rimless glasses = bubble-headed veep candidate). In this case “kitchen table” stands for the cherished middle-class home and its internal communications. 

Around the kitchen table, Sarah Palin didn’t make a complete ass of herself. Therefore, she won the debate. (The winking was creepy, though.) 

Snappy Answer: He’s not such a maverick around the conference table, either.

George W. Bush has put on a wig and rimless glasses and started talking like…Bush.

And I love America where we are more tolerant than other countries are. And are more accepting of some of these choices that sometimes people want to believe reflects solely on an individual’s values or not. Homosexuality, I am not gonna judge people.

Sarah Palin [disguised as Bush] in the Katie Couric interivew

You really can’t blame him. After 8 years as President, he probably figures he’s up for a promotion.

For a Figarovian analysis of Bushspeak—uh, Palinspeak—click here.

I’m looking forward to meeting Joe Biden. I’ve been looking forward to meeting him since the second grade.

VP CANDIDATE SARAH PALIN

ennoia (en-NOY-a), the figure of faint praise. From the Greek, meaning “hidden intention.”

Oh, that saucy Sarah Palin!  With a smile like a dog’s before it bites you, she delivers her lines with an energy we haven’t seen politicians exhibit in some time.  We’re happy to see Governor Palin’s comfort with one of the finer figures. The ennoia damns the victim through faint praise, allowing you to seem agreeable  even when you’re on the attack. But Palin’s use of an it to imply the age of her hoary counterpart strikes us as a tad, well, schoolyardish. 

And why isn’t John McCain laughing?

Snappy Answer: “About the time you decided you were qualified for the vice presidency?”

Here’s another example of ennoia.

Dear Figaro, I have a friend who says “you know” a couple dozen times in any 5 minute conversation. Why does she do this? How can it be stopped?

Fred, from “Ask Figaro”

Dear Fred,

“You know” serves as a figure called a parelcon (pa-REL-con, meaning “redundancy”), a place-filler that gives the speaker’s brain a few more milliseconds to think. “Like” is a more common parelcon these days, and it has its uses in moderation.

“You know” is actually a parelcon from my generation. As I say in my book, my generation was (rightly) uncertain about its ability to communicate. “You know” means “Are you with me? Do you get what I’m saying?” “Like,” on the other hand, reflects a group too timid to stand firmly on one side of anything.

So how do you stop the non-stop parelcon?

1. The Obnoxious Way:  Say “Yes, I know” or “No, I don’t” every time he says “You know.” You will make your point, and he will hate you.
2. The Supportive Way: Mention his problem and offer to help. Set up practice sessions where you beep a horn every time he says “You know.” This feedback method does work. Though he’ll probably end up hating you anyway.
3. The Fun Way: Make it a drinking game. Gulp every time he says it. If he participates, he’ll be too drunk to hate you.
   

Fig.

Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

argumentum ad fortiori, the argument from strength. From the Latin, meaning “argument from strength.”

  New Paris Hilton video on Funny or Die! Responding to a McCain ad that likens Obama to celebrities like the airhead heiress, Paris appears in a leopard-spotted swimsuit. “I want America to know that I’m, like, totally ready to lead,” she says, announcing her candidacy to become president a mere eight years before the U.S. Constitution allows.

She does a nice mashup of her rivals’ energy policies: “We can do limited offshore drilling with strict environmental oversight while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars,” she says.

The McCain campaign volleys back with a very nice argumentum ad fortiori. If something more-so is true, then it’s likely that something less-so will be true as well. Or vice versa. If Paris’s energy policy trumps Barack’s, then we all had better move to Jedda.

Snappy Answer: Plus, she’d be the only president to make energy policy seem dirty.

  
     
After reading two recent books on American torture, Dahlia Lithwick concludes that “the Bush administration erected an entire torture policy” around Jack Bauer, the patriotic sadist in Fox Television’s 24. Bushie and military sources in The Dark Side by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer and The Torture Team by British journalist Phillippe Sands—refer to more often Jack Bauer than to the Constitution.
  
   Our favorite quote comes from Antonin Scalia, who uses a deftly absurd contrarium—one of  those figures of thought that summarize a whole argument in one neat little package. X is true. Therefore, how could you be for Y? Jack Bauer saved L.A. So why would you convict him?
  
   The problem in this case is that X is not true. Bauer does not exist. Which makes him rather shaky proof for undermining the Constitution.
  
   Who’s going to break the news to the Justice?
  
   Snappy Answer: Superman saved more lives, without flesh-eating chemicals. Is Jack Bauer is better than Superman?