英语修辞习题.doc

Syntactic figures of speech1Repetition anaphora epiphora simploceAnadiplosis antithesis parallelismII. Identify the figure(s) of speech used in each of the following sentences.1. I came, I saw, I conquered.2. And this day will come, shall come, must come.3. To err is human; to forgive divine.4. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.5. It is in the soil of ignorance that poverty is planted. It is in the soil of ignorance that disease flourishes. It is in the soil of ignorance that racial and religious strife takes root. (Lyndon B. Johnson)6. Deep rivers move in silence, shallow brooks are noisy.7. The denial of human rights anywhere is a threat to human rights everywhere. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. (Jesse Jackson)8. Faith is a good guide, reason is a better guide, truth is the best guide.9. If we fail in this defense it will not be for lack of money. It will be on account of money. Money has been the most serious handicap that we have met. (Clarence Farrow)10. Speech is silver; silence is golden.11. The taste of America is becoming French in its conversation, French in its comforts and French in its discomforts, French in its eating, and French in its dress, French in its manners, and will become French in its art. (Anthony Trollope )12. Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give up the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. (Thomas Jefferson)13. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; . (Francis Bacon)14. I will recruit for myself and you as I go; I will scatter myself among men and women as I go. (Walt Whiteman)15. Rich and poor, intelligent and ignorant, wise and foolish, virtuous and vicious, man and woman-it is ever the same, each soul must depend wholly on itself. (Elizabeth Cady Stanton). Revise each of the faulty sentences, using the figure of speech stated in the brackets.1. Time will not get this done, and not money, not laws, but willing diligence will get this done. (anaphora)2. These books are not primarily for reading, but they are used for reference. (parallelism)3. To think clearly and rationally should be a major goal for man; but it is always the most difficult for man to think clearly and rationally. (simploce)4. He was a miser, a bachelor, and he is an egoist. (parallelism)5. Adversity and struggle lie at the root of evolutionary progress. Adversity forms pressure, and change is brought by pressure. (anadiplosis)6. Gary is not a good track man, and neither is his swimming. (parallelism)7. When you know a thing, do hold that you know it, and if you do not know it, admit that you do not-this is true knowledge. (anaphora)8. And then suddenly the machines pushed them out and they swarmed on the highways. The movement changed them; the highways, the camps along the road, the fear of hunger and the hunger itself, changed them. The children without dinner changed them, they were changed by the endless moving. They were migrants. And the hostility changed them, welded them, united them. (epiphora)Syntactic figures of speech 2. Identify the figures of speech used in each of the following sentences.chiasmus syllepsis climax zeugma anticlimaxasyndeton polysyndeton rhetorical question1. He caught a bus and a cold.2. I honored him, I trusted him, and I loved him.3. The wolf may lose his teeth, but never his nature4. His fair hair and play attracted the cadres.5. Are they not typical international robbers and pirates?6. Simon is a great statesman, a great warrior, a great poet, and a skilled performer on the harp.7. A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich. (Readers Digest)8.“( Confidence) thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.” (F. Roosevelt)9. His acquaintances, his friends and even his family tamed against him, the traitor.10. One describes the glory of the English Queen,And one describes a charming Indian screen. (A. Pope)11. The man is not rich because he is honest, but he is honest because he is rich (Defoe)12. We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God. (F. Roosevelt)13. Ten minutes later, the coffee and Commander Dana of Naval Intelligence arrived simultaneously.14. They may love or hate or admire or fear or envy this country. (J. Baldwin)15. Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? （F. Roosevelt). Point out the syllepsis used in each of the following sentences. Explain how the governing word (or phrase) is used both literally and figuratively in the sentence.1. She made up her mind and her face.2. Piano, a parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor, is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.3. McHade advised us to keep our public image intact and our students in their seats.4. He possessed two false teeth and a sympathetic heart.5. She looked at the faded photo with suspicion and a magnifying glass.6. The newly elected member for Central Leeds took the oath and his seat.IV. Zeugma is employed in each of the following sentences. First identify the abnormal collocation and then give the one that you think normal.1. The general lost the town and his head.2. Did you ever hear how Miss Piper came to lose her lover and her character last summer at Tunbridge?3. You manage a business, stocks, bonds, people. And now you can manage your hair.4. Love and cough can not be hid.5. Just as she said, all you are supposed to do is every once in a while give the boy a little tea and sympathy. (R. Anderson)6. Persuade her to rise, dear Madame, drag her from her couch and her low spirits. (Thackeray)V. Rewrite the following paragraphs by removing or adding co-connectives accordingly. Compare the transformed version with the original one. Tell the difference between them.1. I came, I saw, I conquered. (Caesar)2. But most of them went towards the fire and then back towards the end and swarmed on the cool end and finally fell off into the fire. I remember thinking at the time that it was the end of the world and a splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log off the fire and throw it out where the ants could get off onto the ground. (E. Hemingway)3. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (The Bible)4. What will not the steam-engine do? It propels, elevates, lowers, pumps, drains, pulls, drives, blasts, digs, cuts, saws, planes, bores, forges, hammers, files, polishes, pivots, cards, spins, winds, weaves, coins, prints, and does more things than I can think of or enumerate.Semantic figures of speechII. Identify the figure(s) of speech used in each of the following sentences.1. He thinks hes a Don Juan, but none of the girls like him2. The smiles of the women suffering a fate better than death are charming.3. The glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. (Martin Luther King)4. A hundred bayonets were marching down the street.5. I spoke to them in hesitant French.6. She borrowed his wheel for a spin out to town.7. Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him. (Benjamin Franklin)8. I expect a treaty, a full-fledged treaty on medium-range missile.9. The scent of the rose rang like a bell through the garden.10. Scepter and Crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked Scythe and Spade. (James Shirley)11. Constant dropping wears the stone. (proverb)12. They had to bear the pitiless wind at night.13. His voice sounded like a thunder in the hall.14. To choose it or not? This is the time to decide. (advertisement)15. On the fourteenth of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. ( Engels)III. Point out where the following parodies come from.1. baconburger, beefburger, steakburger, turkeyburger, fishburger: 2. teach-in, eat-in, love-in, drive-in: 3. telethon, talkathon: 4. househusband, houseperson: 5. moonscape, marscape: 6. right makes might: 7. write between the lines: 8. the kiss of life: IV. Put in the missing words according to the given hints.I. When industry c in at the window, poverty g out of the door. (personification)2. We are creating a nation once again vibrant, robust and alive. But there are manym yet to climb. (Ronald Reagan) (metaphor)3. You can not change his mind any m t you can change the orbit of the moon. (simile)4. That fur coat would be beyond his miserable p . (metonymy)5. There are hundreds of s in the harbor. (synecdoche)6. He was such an awful teacher that whenever he recognized a spark of genius you could be sure hed w it. (metaphor)7. Sharp words may occasionally be spoken by unguarded or ignorant t . (Edward John Phelps) (synecdoche)8. When guns s it is too late to argue. (personification)9. They prolonged the clasp for the photographer, exchanging sm words. (transferred epithet)10. “I was brought up rich.”“Yeah,” I said. “You were born with a F in your mouth.” (R. Chandler) (parody)Logical figures of speech. Identify the figure(s) of speech used in each of the following sentences.1. I was destroyed with fatigue2. Three of my friends were killed in the last three weeks in Chicago. That certainly isnt conducive to peace of mind. (Al Capone)3. Every cloud has a silver lining.4. To have such a relationship is no small thing. (Robert Hawke)5. He met his Waterloo in 1940, when the project he heavily invested was collapsed.6. The cost-saving program became an expensive economy.7. Ill teach you to make a fool of me.8. You want your pound of flesh, dont you?9. I am sorry to hear that your grandfather passed on.10. I wont send my watch to the watchmaker; I dont want it to be damaged11. The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is not a business that can be undertaken in a day or swiftly improved by a mere command of the will The growth of alternative, mental interests is a long process. The seeds must be carefully chosen; they must fall on good ground; they must be sedulously tended, if the vivifying fruits are to be at hand when needed.（W. Churchill)12. What a noble illustration of the tender laws of his favored country！一they let the paupers go to sleep!13. Your grammar is” she had intended saying awful, but she amended it to is not particularly good.” (Jack London)14. They said, when he stood up to speak, stars and stripes came right out in the sky and once he spoke against river and made it sink into the ground. They said, when he walked the woods with his fishing rod, Killal, the trout, would jump out of the streams into his pockets, for they knew it was no use putting up a fight against him; and, when he argued a case, he could turn on the harps of the blessed and the shaking of the earth underground. That was the kind of man he was, and his big farm up at Marshfield was suitable to himA man with a mouth like a mastiff, a brow like a mountain and eyes like burning anthracite一that was Danil Webster in his prime. （Stephen Vincent Benet). Put in the missing words according to the given hints.1. A strong man knows his w (Paradox)2. My feet are k me. (hyperbole)3. He is no m opponent in the coming debate. (understatement)4. His speech brought the house d . (hyperbole)5. He that is full of himself is very e (paradox)6. Europe is a curious place. It boasts it has a common market, but it is unable to sort out its agricultural mess, and when the marketers gather as they did recently in Athens, they find they have nothing in c .(Newsweek 9 Jan.1984) (innuendo)7. When pressed by a natural necessity they r themselves in the open street without regard to the passersby. (Maugham) (euphemism)8. The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned l in his head （Alexander Pope）(oxymoron)9. Robbing a widow of her savings was certainly a n act. (irony)10. He s of shouted at me. (understatement)11. All is not gold that gl . (allegory)12. The woman were gowned beautifully, I admit; but to my naive surprise I discovered that they were of the same cl as all the rest of the woman I had known down below in the cellar. (Jack London) (allusion)IV. Fill in the form with plain words/expressions or euphemistic words/ expressions as indicated.Plain languageEuphemistic language1steal2fat person3adult movie; X-rated films; blue films4one-way mission5madhouse6ugly7the aged/aging8capital punishmentA General Test on Figures of SpeechIdentify the figure(s) of speech used in the following sentences.1. Your Heavens, give me that patience, patience I need! (Shakespeare)2. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. (The Bible)3. We felt strong, smug, secure.4. Return to her? No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To be a comrade with the wolf and owl (Shakespeare)5. One of my kids wrote four-letter words in his composition, the teacher said.6. When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. (The Bible)7. And do whateer thou wilt, swift-footed time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets; But I forbid thee one most heinous crime. (Shakespeare)8. All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? (The Bible)9. Now, what advantage do we derive from hearing a man say that he has shaken off the yoke, that he does not believe that there is a God who watches over his actions, that he regards himself as sole judge of his conduct, and that he does not think of accounting for it to anyone but himself? Does he imagine that by saying this he is encouraging us to feel great confidence in him in the future and to expect comfort, advice, and help from him in the difficult situations of life? Do such men imagine that they have greatly rejoiced us by telling us that they think our soul is only a puff of wind or smoke, and still more by telling us so in an arrogant, self-satisfied tone? Is it a thing to be said cheerily? Is it not rather something to be admitted mournfully as though it were the saddest thing in the whole world? (Pascal)10. Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. (Mark Twain)11. Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay, that what is made should say to its maker, He did not make me；or what is formed say to him who formed it, He has no understanding? (The Bible)12. Greatness, in the works of architecture, may be considered as relating to the bulk and body of the structure. Not to mention the Tower of Babel, of which an old author says there were the foundations to be seen in his time, which looked like a spacious mountain （Joseph Addison)13. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of Gods children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of radial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. (Martin Luthur King)14. You earn your living and you urn your dead.15. Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement. (Samuel Johnson)16. For ours is the age of four As：anxiety, apprehension, agonizing, and aspirin. (James Thurber)17. So will these unattractive and mysterious objects lead to a new world economic order, or will the game be played according to the usual industrial rules; from each according to his ability, to each according to his investments?18. 0 soul of mine, will you never be good and sincere, all one, all open, visible to the beholder more clearly than even your encompassing body of flesh? Will you never taste the sweetness of a loving and affectionate heart? Will you never be filled full and unwanting; craving nothing, yearning for no creature or thing to minister to your pleasures, no prolongation of days to enjoy them, no place or country or pleasant clime or sweet human company? (Marcus Aurelius)19. It is in art as in morals; no character would inspire us with an enthusiastic admiration of his virtue, if that virtue consisted only in an