The Amazon Guide

What is a Zeugma?

Zeugma is a rhetorical device where a single word is made to refer to two or more words in a sentence, often playing on the words’ literal and metaphorical meanings.

Smiling with a crooked smile that did little to hide his crooked intentions and crooked teeth, he said “Trust me.”

The verb ‘To hide’ controls two other words: intentions and teeth. But what is worthy of note in this zeugma is the juxtaposition of an abstract noun (intentions) to a concrete one (teeth).

Now, however, sloth triumphs over diligence, idleness over work, vice over virtue, arrogance over valor, and theory over the practice of arms which lived and shone only in the Golden Age and in the time of the knights errant (Cervantes 465).

I found her enchanted, transformed from a princess into a peasant, from beautiful to ugly, from an angel into a devil, from fragrant into foul-smelling, from well spoken into rustic, from serene into skittish, from light into darkness, and, finally from Dulcinea of Toboso into a lowborn farmgirl from Sayago (Cervantes 671).

With this simple device Cervantes adds delight and color to the narrative-by means of antithesis-at the same time that cultivates the reader’s attentiveness, forcing him to put two and two together to grasp the intended meaning.

Zeugmas used in a humorous vein:

Lenox said, “Hog, the only thing you save is your breath when you eat.”

After two unsuccessful marriages, I find myself keeping my guard up, along with my underpants (Grafton, C is for Corpse 15).

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, we note Portia’s saucy speech:

How oddly he is suited [outfitted]! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior everywhere. (Act I, scene ii, line 72-72).

Zeugmas used to set the tone of a book, as in the Vicar of Wakefield:

From this motive, I had scarce taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well (Goldsmith 4).

Zeugmas in Dialogue:

“Eliot, Michael’s untimely departure leaves us with a space both in our house and in our hearts” (Segal 112). “To our beloved new leader Jason Gilbert, ace racket-man and incomparable ass-man. May his shots in court drop as often as his shorts in bed” (Segal 143).

The governing word may be a noun as well as a verb, as we see in the following examples from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, where the controlling word is the noun ‘hand’:

Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones; she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard (7).

and the controlling word is the verb ‘lost’ in the following example:

Mrs. Radley had been beautiful until she married Mr. Radley and lost all her money. She also lost most of her teeth, her hair, and her right forefinger (Dill’s contribution) (39).

From the above examples we infer that zeugmas may be employed to give the narration an air of lighthearted humor or banter. Just as the fool in Shakespearean dramas breaks the solemnity of the scene with parody and foolery, so does Cervantes in Don Quijote:

At this moment a gelder of hogs happened to arrive at the inn, and as he arrived he blew his reed pipe four or five times, which confirmed for Don Quixote that he was in a famous castle where they were entertaining him with music, and that the cod was trout, the bread soft and white, the prostitutes ladies, the innkeeper the castellan of the castle, and that his decision to sally forth had been a good one (Cervantes 29).

When zeugmas join concrete and abstract nouns, the combinations can stir up the reader’s emotions. Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried is replete with this type of zeugmas:

As a hedge against bad times, however, Kiowa also carried his grandmother’s distrust of the white man, his grandfather’s old hunting hatchet (3). He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men (5). But Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe, and he went down under an exceptional burden, more than 20 pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus the unweighed fear (6).

See how Gabriel Garcia Marquez creates atmospheric tension with the use of one governing verb, ‘listening’:

He got dressed by feel, listening in the dark to his brother’s calm breathing, the dry cough of his father in the next room, the asthma of the hens in the courtyard, the buzz of the mosquitoes, the beating of his heart, and the inordinate bustle of a world that he had not noticed until then, and he went out in the sleeping street (Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude 27).

We haven’t exhausted the topic, for there are other zeugma derivatives that depend on what slot of the sentence the zeugma is placed in; but their sophistication can cause ambiguity and confusion; therefore we do not recommend their use.

About the Author:

Retired. Former investment banker, Columbia University-educated, Vietnam Vet (67-68).
For the writing techniques I use, see Mary Duffy’s e-book: Sentence Openers.
To read my book reviews of the Classics visit my blog: Writing To Live

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Zeugma -Rhetorical Device Used By Master Writers

The word weather girls remind us of so much. We mainly have the singing sensation in mind. They were the all American girl group which was formed in 1982. The original members of the weather girls were Martha Wash and Izora Armstead. They are known for many hits but one record that was a hit wonder was called ‘It is raining men’. They have produced many albums since that time and, they have made a mark in the world of music. But let us think of the other kinds of weather girls. Weather girls are girls who are responsible for presenting the weather forecast for media. There are so many personalities known for presenting the weather and, it is vital to explore what the girls are really like. First, the girls are usually very attractive. They also have excellent skills of communication which ensure that professionalism is up held. I’m sure you have a favorite weather girl from your local area.

Today, weather presenters are called weather anchors. They play a major role in ensuring that the information on weather gets to the people. Let us explore some of the leading weather anchors who are female and known all over the world. The name Jenny Harrison comes to mind and, she is the outstanding weather anchor of the Cable News Network. You will find her on a three hour rolling news program where she gives an update of the weather. The morning show is pretty fast moving and, she includes some additional items that touch on the weather. She is based in Atlanta at the CNN world weather headquarters. You will also find the weather girl in the monthly show that brings in-depth information about the various patterns of the weather and the different phenomena. Before Harrison joined CNN in 1999, she worked in her home country in Britain where she anchored the weather for various television stations. It is pretty exciting to know more about these girls. There are many other girls who host weather shows all around the world and, for more information, you can go online and make sure that you get all the details. We are living in a world where global warming threatens our very existence.

For this reason it is good to count on the girls to keep us updated on the happening and the future even that might occur in regard to weather. Tsunamis and elnino are just of some of the evidence that trends and global patterns are changing and, knowing this is the first step to ensure that you play your part when it comes to issues environment. Some of the little things you can do to conserve the environment in which you live in include using the right energy that will not pollute; you can also use biodegradable items to wrap your items. For more tips, listen to weather anchors and read on their reports. After all, their role is to ensure that you are living in a conducive environment that is suitable for human and animal habitation.

About the Author:

Francis K. Githinji Is An Online Dating Expert. His Latest ProjectWeather Girls Shows How The Power Of Online Dating Can Be Harnessed Internationally and With Great Success, Or You Could Post Your Valued Comments On His Blog At Weather Girls

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – One of the Most Popular Weather Girls

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We all lie—a world without “little white lies” would be uncivilized. But 99% of us have told bigger lies in our lifespan. For most of us, lies told in our personal life makes us feel bad. However, we still continue to lie and cheat.

Few events cause as much turmoil in a marriage as infidelity, which can reduce a marriage to rubble, shattering trust and creating a breeding ground for insecurity, mistrust and resentment. Most of us have witnessed affairs among people we know, and some of us even have had affairs ourselves. This kind of thing happens in the real world, and it happens all the time. One third of all married couples admit to having cheated on their mates. Let’s not be naïve. That’s quite a large number of people taking risks!

Affairs begin with two people who find each other interesting and attractive. For whatever reason, the relationship escalates into romance and, finally, into sexual intimacy. People who seek romance and sexual intimacy outside of their primary relationship feel that their relationship is missing something, so they go out and they seek it from someone else.

If you feel deep in your heart, that your spouse is lying and being unfaithful to you, here are some ways to be sure. One of the techniques professionals use to tell who is lying, and who is telling the truth is to follow eye movements. Neuro-Linguistic Programming says that when people are constructing imaginary or fantasy images we look up and to the left if we are right-handed and up and to the right if we are left-handed. Think, “What color is my Mom’s hair?” Where did your eyes go? Now think, “I’m an astronaut and when I went to the moon I made a snow-man out of moon dust.” Where did your eyes go this time?

In the book, Telling Lies by lie-catcher Paul Ekman, he presents his “facial action coding system.” These are the facial expressions we all use that are hard-wired to the brain and will show up without our conscious control. Charles Bond, a psychologist at Texas Christian University reported that among 2,520 adults surveyed in 6.3 countries, more than 70% believe that liars tend to avert their gazes and/or stutter, touch, or scratch themselves or tell longer stories than usual.

If you’re spouse is working too many late nights, think about this next time you ask them what their plans are for the night.

Although, there has been some research lately that says this analysis is too simplistic to be counted upon, detectives continue to use it along with other tools. There was a story in “Outside Magazine” about a detective involved in an investigation of a poaching in a national park. He claimed he could tell within one minute if someone was lying. I got very excited and tracked him down to a sub-station in Wyoming. He said that he teaches his skills to trainees in one hour but he wouldn’t tell me what they were. Maybe he thought I was a secret poacher (which is hard to be in Santa Barbara)

Here are some other ways to tell if your partner or spouse is lying and having an extramarital affair:

1. If their answer to your question is brief, clear, and direct, that is a good sign that it is true.
2. Liars start to elaborate and repeat themselves and sometimes their story or the details change.
3. The more a liar tries, the more you need to worry.

An extramarital affair takes a great deal of energy. The lying, sneaking around, and destroying of evidence all take tremendous amounts of energy. The onset of guilty feelings about having the affair, in the first place, further zaps whatever energy the partner having the affair might still have left. And, guess what all this used energy is a complete waste, because liars cannot control the ‘leakage’ of their true feelings, which run in micro-expressions that last half a second. It is so ordinary, so much a part of our everyday lives and everyday conversations that we hardly notice it.

About the Author:

Wendy Allen, PhD, president of Wendy Allen PhD Coaching is an expert on marriage and infidelity. She will help you move through the normal but mind-blowing phases of discovery, betrayal, and loss. You can’t go back to how things were, but you can move forward and capture the good moments in life again. Check out www.survive-the-affair.com for a free audio download that will give you important tips for getting through this difficult time.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Marriage & Infidelity: Cheating Spouses Can’t Hide From The Truth

Traditional – Barbara Allen – Scholl