chiasmic!

[A. Vine]

Thought folks on this list would enjoy this particular AWAD - Andrea


chiasmus (ki-AZ-muhs) noun

   A rhetorical inversion of the second of two parallel structures.

[New Latin, from Greek khiasmos, syntactic inversion, from khiazein, to
invert or mark with an X.]

   "As a literary and rhetorical device, chiasmus has woven itself into the
   fabric of human life. The greatest speeches of all time would be weaker
   without chiasmus. What other words could JFK have used to rival his
   famous `Ask not what your country can do for you' line."
   Grothe, Dr. Mardy, Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you, Viking,
   1999.

I've taken the citation for today's word from a new book "Never let a fool
kiss you or a kiss fool you," a delightful collection of chiasmi compiled
by Dr. Mardy Grothe. Grothe is clearly a man taken by his passion as he
confesses, "I didn't just get into chiasmus, chiasmus also got into me."
About his experience compiling the book and his expectations from it, he
notes, "I've had a wealth of experience, so I guess I'm hoping this book
will provide me with ... an experience of wealth. The book is a veritable
mine of chiasmi with such gems as,

   It may be compared to a cage
   the birds without try desperately to get in,
   and those within try desperately to get out.
   -Michel de Montaigne, on marriage

   It is not my interest to pay the principal
   nor is it my principle to pay the interest
   -Richard Brinsely Sheridan, to a lender

Even better are implied chiasmus such as,

   Time's fun when you're having flies.
   -Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson)

For more chiastic pleasure, visit http://chiasmus.com/ . Would you like to
share the fun of words and words of fun? Craft an original chiasmus and
email it to anu at wordsmith.org. I'll feature selected chiasmi here next week.
And for the rest of this week, we'll see some other words about words. -Anu

...........................................................................
A fool always finds some greater fool to admire him. -Nicholas
Boileau-Despreaux, French poet (1636-1711)

Looking for a word or quotation previously featured in AWAD? They are all
archived at http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/archives.html . For the theme list,
see http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/themes.html . Alphabetical listing of the
words is available at http://wordsmith.org/awad/wordlist.html

Pronunciation:
http://www.wordsmith.org/words/chiasmus.wav
http://www.wordsmith.org/words/chiasmus.ram