Definition and Examples of the Figures of Speech Updated September 21, 2016. Definition The figures of speech are the various rhetorical uses of language that depart from customary construction, word order, or significance. "Figures of speech," Gleaves Whitney has observed, "are all of the ways in which human beings bend and stretch words to heighten meaning or create a desired effect" (American Presidents: Farewell Messages to the Nation, 2003). Common figures of speech include metaphor , simile , metonymy , hyperbole , personification , and chiasmus , though there are countless others. Figures of speech are also known as figures of rhetoric, figures of style, rhetorical figures, figurative language , and schemes . Although the figures of speech are sometimes regarded as simply ornamental additions to a text (like candy sprinkles on a cake), in fact they serve as integral elements of style and thought (the cake itself, as Tom Robbins points out).

In the Institutes of Oratory (95 AD), Quintilian says that the figures, used effectively, are "exciting to the emotions" and give "credibility to our arguments ." continue reading below our video 4 Tips for Improving Test Performance For examples of the most common figures, follow the links at The Top 20 Figures of Speech . Also see Examples and Observations below. For definitions of well over 100 figures, visit The Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis . Quizzes on Figures of Speech Examples and Observations "An integral part of language, figures of speech are found in oral literatures, as well as in polished poetry and prose and in everyday speech . Greeting-card rhymes , advertising slogans , newspaper headlines, the captions of cartoons, and the mottoes of families and institutions often use figures of speech, generally for humorous, mnemonic , or eye-catching purposes. The argots of sports, jazz, business, politics, or any specialized groups abound in figurative language . Most figures in everyday speech are formed by extending the vocabulary of what is already familiar and better known to what is less well known." (Merriam-Webster's Reader's Handbook.

Merriam-Webster, 1997) The Figures as Ways of Seeing - "The vast pool of terms for verbal ornamentation has acted like a gene pool for the rhetorical imagination, stimulating us to look at language in another way. . . . The figures have worked historically to teach a way of seeing." (Richard Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, 2nd ed. University of California Press, 1991) - "The most excellent ornaments, exornations, lightes, flowers, and formes of speech, commonly called the figures of rhetorike. By which the singular partes of mans mind, are most aptly expressed, and the sundrie affections of his heart most effectuallie uttered." ( Henry Peacham , The Garden of Eloquence, 1593) "Language Is Not the Frosting, It's the Cake" "If, as Terence McKenna contended, the world is actually made of language, then metaphors and similes ( puns , too, I might add) extend the dimensions and expand the possibilities of the world.

When both innovative and relevant, they can wake up a reader, make him or her aware, through elasticity of verbiage, that reality—in our daily lives as well as in our stories—is less prescribed than tradition has led us to believe. . . . "Ultimately, I use figures of speech to deepen the reader's subliminal understanding of the person, place, or thing that's being described. That, above everything else, validates their role as a highly effective literary device. If nothing else, they remind reader and writer alike that language is not the frosting, it's the cake." (Tom Robbins, "What Is the Function of Metaphor?" Wild Ducks Flying Backward. Bantam, 2005) The Plasticity of Language "The figurings of speech reveal to us the apparently limitless plasticity of language itself. We are confronted, inescapably, with the intoxicating possibility that we can make language do for us almost anything we want. Or at least a Shakespeare can." (Arthur Quinn, Figures of Speech: 60 Ways To Turn A Phrase.

Routledge, 1995) Schemes "The Greeks called them ' schemes ,' a better word than 'figures,' because they serve as persuasive tricks and rules of thumb. While Shakespeare had to memorize more than 200 of them in grammar school, the basic ones aren't hard to learn. . . . "Figures of speech change ordinary language through repetition , substitution, sound , and wordplay . They mess around with words—skipping them, swapping them, and making them sound different." (Jay Heinrichs, Thank You for Arguing. Three Rivers Press, 2007) Figures of Argument and Figures of Style "We consider a figure to be argumentative if it brings about a change of perspective, and its use seems normal in relation to this new situation. If, on the other hand, the speech does not bring about the adherence of the hearer to this argumentative form, the figure will be considered an embellishment, a figure of style .

It can excite admiration, but this will be on the aesthetic plane, or in recognition of the speaker's originality." (Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Translated by J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver. University of Notre Dame Press, 1969) Figures of Speech in Economics "Figures of speech are not mere frills. They think for us. Says Heidegger, 'Die Spracht spricht, nicht der Mensch': The language speaks, not the human speaker. Someone who thinks of a market as an 'invisible hand' and the organization of work as a 'production function' and her coefficients as being 'significant,' as an economist does, is giving the language a lot of responsibility. It seems a good idea to look hard at the language." (Deirdre N. McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics, 2nd ed. University of Wisconsin Press, 1998) Figures of Speech and Thought "The real nature of the relation of figures to thought is very generally misunderstood.

The majority of rhetoricians treat of them as mere ornaments, which render a discourse more pleasing, and which may be used or rejected at pleasure. Some writers—as, for example, Locke--condemn their employment in works intended to convey knowledge and truth; they are pronounced inventions, which serve only to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and mislead the judgment. "But instead of being inventions of art, they are the natural, and therefore necessary and universal forms, in which excited imagination and passion manifest themselves. The young and the old, the barbarous and the civilized, all employ them unconsciously. Languages in their earlier state are highly figurative; as they grow older they lose their natural picturesqueness and become collections of lifeless symbols. These abstract forms are regarded by rhetoricians and grammarians as the natural and ordinary forms of speech, and so they describe figures as departures from the usual forms of expression." (Andrew D.

Hepburn, Manual of English Rhetoric, 1875) Figures of Speech as (Metaphorical) Dance Moves "[Figures of speech] are like the steps a ballet dancer might perform as part of a longer routine: for instance, pirouette (spinning on tiptoes), grand jeté (jumping horizontally with legs extended backward and forward), and chassé (sliding with legs bent). These dance moves, like the figures, are units of performance: we can point to them, describe how they are formed, and judge whether they are executed effectively or not. There are no rigid rules about how they might be combined or incorporated into a broader performance. Like dance moves, the figures of speech are vehicles for managing interactions between performer and audience while shaping the latter's perceptions of what they see or read. They are also already in circulation and thus part of a general repertoire for performance. For this reason, they carry meanings and values that exceed an individual performer's use of them. In other words, they come with baggage—most of it positive, but some negative." (Chris Holcomb and M. Jimmie Killingsworth, Performing Prose: The Study and Practice of Style in Composition.

Southern Illinois University Press, 2010) The Lighter Side of Figures of Speech Rocket: I have a plan! I have a plan! Drax: Cease your yammering, and relieve us from this irksome confinement. Peter Quill: Yeah, I’ll have to agree with the walking thesaurus on that one. Drax: Do not ever call me a thesaurus. Peter Quill: It's just a metaphor, Dude. Rocket: His people are completely literal . Metaphors are gonna go over his head. Drax: Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it. Gamora: I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy. (Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014) Pronunciation: FIG-yurz uv SPEECH Figures of Speech Figures of Speech Basics of Bible Interpretation - Chapter 7 One of the most enlightening aspects of language is the study of figurative expressions. Milton Terry introduces us to this subject with keen insight: The natural operations of the human mind prompt men to trace analogies and make comparisons.

Pleasing emotions are excited and the imagination is gratified by the use of metaphors and similes. Were we to suppose a language sufficiently copious in words to express all possible conceptions, the human mind would still require us to compare and contrast our concepts, and such a procedure would soon necessitate a variety of figures of speech. So much of our knowledge is acquired through the senses, that all our abstract ideas and our spiritual language have a material base. "It is not too much to say," observes Max Muller, "that the whole dictionary of ancient religion is made up of metaphors. With us these metaphors are all forgotten. We speak of spirit without thinking of breath, of heaven without thinking of sky, of pardon without thinking of a release, of revelation without thinking of a veil. But in ancient language every one of these words, nay, every word that does not refer to sensuous objects, is still in a chrysalis stage, half material and half spiritual, and rising and falling in its character according to the capacities of its speakers and hearers." (1) What potent possibilities, then, lie in concepts conveyed by figurative language! So, moving to specifics, let's explore the various figures of speech.

I'll list some of them, along with illustrations of their use on the following pages. Figures of Speech SIMILE (similis = like) A formal comparison using "as...so" or "like" to express resemblance. "Even so, husbands should love their own wives as their own bodies..." (Eph. 5:28). METAPHOR (Meta + phero = a carrying over) An implied comparison, a word applied to something it is not, to suggest a resemblance. "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf..." (Gen. 49:27). IRONY (Eiron = a dissembling speaker) The speaker or writer says the very opposite of what he intends to convey."...you are the people and wisdom will die with you" (Job 12:1). METONYMY (Mesa + onoma = a change of name) One word is used in place of another to portray some actual relationship between the things signified."Kill the Passover..." (Exod. 12:21 KJV) where the paschal lamb is meant.

HYPERBOLE (Huper + bole = a throwing beyond) Intentional exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis, or a magnifying beyond reality. "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away..." (Matt. 5:29). PERSONIFICATION (To make like a person) Inanimate objects are spoken of as persons, as if they had life. "The sea looked and fled..."(Ps. 114:3, 4). APOSTROPHE (apo + strepho = to turn from) Turning from the immediate hearers to address an absent or imaginary person or thing. "Ah, sword of the Lord! How long till you are quiet?" (Jer. 47:6). SYNECDOCHE (sun + ekdechomai to receive from and associate with) Where the whole is put for a part, or a part for the whole, an individual for a class and vice-versa. "And we were in all 276 souls..." in Acts 27:37, where soul is used for the whole person. Simile First, let's compare simile and metaphor.

Ephesians 5:2227 is a simile, making a formal comparison between Christ and the church on the one hand, and husbands and wives on the other. The words "as...so" or "even so" make this very clear. And this figure heightens our interest and dignifies the marriage relationship, especially if we see it in outline form, like this: As with CHRIST AND THE CHURCH So with HUSBANDS AND WIVES CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH and gave HIMSELF up for her...Eph. 5:25 HUSBANDS, LOVE your WIVES as CHRIST LOVED the CHURCH...Eph 5:25 "THAT he might sanctify her" (Eph. 5:26) i.e. that we might be put to the intended use for which he created us: a) as an expression of his own LIFE and CHARACTER. b) to fulfill our calling, enjoy our God-given ministries. c) and much more (you add the rest.) THAT the husband might sanctify his wife. i.e. that she might SHARE HIS LIFE, be his helper, etc. a) expressing her own personality and life in Christ.

b) employing her gifts in a spiritual ministry. c) be the ruler of the home, in all that means to her husband and children. "THAT he might present the church to himself in splendor" (Eph. 5:27) i.e. that he might enjoy the benefits stemming from his unselfish love-- in enjoying his Bride. And lead us on to the fulfillment of our manhood and womanhood by his love. THAT the husband might seek his wife's fulfillment, and enjoy her. i.e. that he may enjoy the beauty and glory of her fulfilled womanhood, as he undertakes the responsibility of his headship--leading her with the leadership of love to ultimate fulfillment. "THAT she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:27). i.e. that his work in us may go on to completion, that we may be wholly his. THAT the husband be faithful, hanging in there. i.e. that his commitment may be steadfast and permanent, in spite of problems. "Having cleansed her by he washing of water with the word" (Eph.

5:26) Based on COMMUNICATION which his loving heart initiates--to keep us close, mutually enjoying our love relationship. Husbands are to keep communication channels open, remembering that LOVE finds a way to COMMUNICATE, and it's his initiative if he is going to love as CHRIST LOVED. Metaphor By contrast, a metaphor is not so straightforward. It communicates an impression more by implication. In the expressions, "You are the salt of the earth..." (Matt. 5:13) and "You are the light of the world" (Matt. 5:14), our Lord Jesus is multiplying metaphors to communicate graphic truth about the determinative role Christians are to play in affecting the world. In those early days, salt was the major means of arresting corruption in meat or fish, so the figure is not lost on those who listened to Jesus. Light, in any age, enables us to function with any degree of confidence. It dispels darkness. When we can't see, we're in trouble! The words "salt" and "light" are used as implied comparison. These metaphors speak with penetrating force, even though they are implicit in nature.

Irony The use of irony as a figure of speech, though it has a bite to it, often has its humorous side. Our Lord was using both effects when he said, "...how can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?" (Luke 6:42). In 1 Corinthians 4:8 the apostle Paul uses irony with great force, "Already you are filled! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you." As we read on, Paul proceeds to contrast the state of the apostles as being the last--not the first, as spectacles to the world, as fools. Then he uses irony again, "We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute" (1 Cor. 4:10).

Can you imagine how the Corinthian Christians must have felt the shame of their misplaced value systems, how this pointed word of sarcasm must have punctured their swollen pride in men? Would that we should review our value systems, today, and discover the only ground of boasting--the Lord Jesus and his life in us. Metonymy Then there's metonymy (a change of name). Speaking to the Pharisees concerning Herod, Christ says "Go and tell that fox..." (Luke 13:32) end with one word he characterized that politically crafty king. And, "The way of the fool is right in his own eyes..." (Prov. 12:15) where eyes represents the way he sees things, or his mental perspective. And, "...the tongue of the wise brings healing" (Prov. 12:18) in which tongue stands for what the wise one says, his words of wisdom. In the New Testament, "Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan..." (Matt. 3:5 ) in which it is obvious that people, not places, are meant in the mention of these various regions.

Then, we look at "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons" ( 1 Cor. 10:21). Here cup and table are used for what they contain and what they offer. Again, in Romans 3:30 the circumcision is used to represent the Jewish people, while uncircumcision refers to the Gentiles. I'm sure from these examples you can see how commonly metonymy is used in the Bible. We use the same figure today when we call a person "a tiger" or "a kitten." Hyperbole Painting a picture larger than life by intentional exaggeration beyond reality is a common feature of our own speech, so hyperbole (a throwing beyond) should be thoroughly familiar to us. In the anguish of his torment Job indulges in this kind of language. More graphically than any other form of speech it expresses the awfulness of his feeling of affliction. And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me. The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

With violence it seizes my garment; it binds me about like the collar of my tunic. God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes. I cry to thee and thou cost not answer me; I stand, and thou cost not heed me. Thou hast turned cruel to me; with the might of thy hand thou cost persecute me. Thou liftest me up on the wind, thou makest me ride on it, and thou tossest me about in the roar of the storm. Yea, I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living (Job30:1-23). Certainly we get the keen sense of his utter despair from this highly expressive, but extravagant, language. The apostle John in the New Testament uses hyperbolic language in this statement: "But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25).

If we considered Christ's eternal existence, perhaps this statement could be taken literally, but if we limit it to the deeds of the Lord Jesus in his humanity (which I believe is what John has in mind) then it is clearly a use of hyperbole. Personification Referring to inanimate objects as if they possessed life and personality is especially evident in the language of imagination and feeling. In Numbers 16:32, "...the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up..." speaks of Korah and his men. Here the earth is personified as having a mouth to devour these men. The Lord Jesus uses personification in, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Matt. 23:37). The city of Jerusalem is here personified. Our Lord's concern was for its people, yet he addresses the city as if it were they. Again, our Lord personifies tomorrow in these words: "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself" (Matt. 6:34).

Here tomorrow is invested with characteristics of human personality, as being beset with anxious cares. Apostrophe This is a strange but graphic figure which sounds as if the speaker were talking to himself in a sort of externalized soliloquy. For instance, David says to his dead son, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Sam. 18:33). What a moving expression of David's grief this is; no other mode of expression could be quite so expressive in this instance. Then there is the use of this figure in which the kings of earth address a fallen city, "Alas! alas! thou great city, thou mighty city, Babylon! In one hour has thy judgment come!" (Rev. 18:10). This figure of speech seems best adapted to the expression of deep emotion. As such, it readily grabs our attention and draws out our interest. Synechdoche Here's one most of us never heard of, but which we frequently use in everyday speech. We say, "This is his hour" when we don't really mean an hour just sixty minutes long.

We mean this is his time of glory, or suffering, or whatever we associate with his current experience. We have substituted a part for the whole. In scripture it occurs in such passages as this: in Judges 12:7 we are told Jephthah was buried "in the cities of Gilead" (Hebrew) though actually only one of those cities is meant; in Luke 2:1 "all the world" is used to mean the world of the Roman Empire, in Deuteronomy 32:41 "if I whet the lightning of my sword" the word lightning is used for the flashing edge of the gleaming blade. Perhaps now we have seen enough of the prevalence and expressive value of figures of speech to help us appreciate the color and realism they lend to the language of the Bible. Also, interpretively, our review should take some of the mystery out of our encounters with these forms, in studying the Bible.

References: Figures of Speech - Examples and Meanings - Write a Writing Letter Figures of Speech – Examples and Meanings In the written context as well as in the real life, people use different sorts of communications to connect with other people and Figures of Speech is one such type of communication that people take help from and use them to interact with one another and can convey different sorts of meanings. So before starting with the Figures of Speech and their examples in the English language, it is important to know what actually a Figure of Speech is. What is its definition and what meaning does it hold. Initially, figures of speech are used so common in daily life that no one really notice it. It is like an art of language. At times, Figures of Speech (sometimes known as Rhetorical figure or locution) may be a repetition of words or phrases and at times it may be have a literal meaning or sometimes have a specialized meaning giving less importance to its literal meaning. Here we must distinguish the difference between what literal means and what does figurative really means. When we say literal, it means something that happens and when we use the word figurative it means something feels like happening.

It may also exclude a few words known as the omission of words to create a whole new idea or a concept or we can say a whole different meaning. It can be used in parts of an entire whole as well as a whole of different parts. They mess around with the words with the help of repetition or omission etc. They can be assigned the work of departure from their conventional meaning or we can say they are the construction of old and new words. Figures of Speech operate with the four fundamental or rhetorical operations:- Repetition – where a figure of speech adds up news words or often repeats the same words/phrases within the same sentence Omission – when a figure of speech omits some words or in a sense subtracts a few to form a new sentence following a new meaning Transposition – is when a figure of speech is transferred into new words Permutation – this operation works with the substitution and interchanging of words. The word switching may be best used to describe this operation. All these four operations were originated by the classical rhetoric Figure of Speech is just a figurative language. As already explained, they can be interesting for the followers and at the same time a bit confusing for the new comers.

Figures of speech totally change-up an ordinary language into something new and unique. It totally opens up an individual person’s mind to have a better understanding about a person, place or a thing around him or that exists in his knowledge. All of us use figures of speech almost daily and we don’t even notice it but we do really make use of them even in simple conversation for example when we get hungry and are searching for food we use the sentence ‘I’m starving’ so that’s also a common form of figure of speech known as ‘Hyperbole’ or whenever we say ‘falling in love’ or ‘storming our brains’ we make use of the common ‘Metaphors’ which is just another figure of speech. We all use different figure of speech in written form as well as verbally. Have a look at some of the common refreshing figures of speech along with their examples that you might have an idea or remember from your English school classes. Simile This figure of speech is the most commonly used of all in English language and they are very much related with the metaphors.

Simile is used to compare one thing with another thing using the words ‘like’ and ‘as or sometimes ‘seems’ and ‘appears’ and the two words aren’t the same but they are used as a comparison to make a point about each other. For example:- My little son is ‘like’ a robot, he roams around everywhere inside the house destroying every possible thing he touches. In this example, the first part where the son is being compared with a robot is a simile whereas the remaining part of the sentence explains the comparison very clearly and adds light to the description. Life is like a rainbow. Love is like magic. Babies are like cute little creatures. Metaphor As mentioned earlier, a metaphor is related to Simile but it is somewhat different in the sense that it used two words for comparison in a sentence that are unlike but is in search of something that makes them alike. Metaphor does not include the usage of ‘like’ and ‘as’ In its sentences. It doesn’t really use a lot of word but yet forces the readers to catch the similarities. For example:- She is a night sparrow. Now here in this particular sentence, is she literally a sparrow? No, of course not!

But the comparison is just made to show how two unlike words are being used in a same sentence and that very much is known as a metaphor. Time is space. The entire world’s a stage. Rabail is a sheep. The Basic Difference Between a Simile and a Metaphor:- Metaphor does not make use of the words ‘like’ and ‘as’ in its sentences as Simile does and that is where the only difference lies between a Simile and a Metaphor. A Simile shows a relationship[ of words and the comparison by specifically using the words ‘like’ and ‘as’ whereas a metaphor does not do this, it would rather create the relationship directly and leave the rest of the imagination on to the readers. For example:- A simile will be when we say ‘he eats like an animal’ whereas a metaphor will be when instead it is said ‘he is an animal’ Other types of metaphors include dead metaphors and mixed metaphors. Irony Irony is a very famous figure of speech and interestingly it is many people’s favorite because irony is similar to sarcasm where the meaning is just the opposite of its real meaning.

It is not the same as it sounds like, the meaning is so ironic, funny and poky that it seems serious to the other people listening. For example:- ‘Gentleman! You can’t fight in there, this is war room’ taken from Dr Strangelove debunks what has really been just said. ‘After begging for a water bottle and finally found one, she found out that it was empty.’ The traffic cop gets arrested for not paying his parking tickets. Hyperbole Hyperbole is an exaggeration of an ordinary by comparing it with a heavy word and often tends of overstate the statement. It explains the word to a greater extent saying much more than what is intended so we can say that hyperbole is the opposite to that of understatement. For example:- The hungry man ate everything in the house. Now taking the sentence seriously, did the man literally eat everything? Like did he even eat the bed and curtains? No he didn’t, that’s where we can see the exaggerated view of hyperbole. It’s funny but interesting.

‘I have warned you a hundred times not to go outside.’ (No, whoever was that, did not said it a hundred times in its literal meaning) ‘Everybody knows that’ (there are so many people living on earth not exactly everyone knows it) Anaphora This type of figure of speech makes use of the phrases or quotations or verses that begins with the same word or words. Anaphora uses specific clause at the very beginning of each sentence. This sounds interesting than all other figures of speech because it creates more emotional effect on the readers by the use of same word at the start of every sentence. For example:- ‘We eat, we sleep, we rise, we fall’ ‘They laughed, they loved, they sang’ ‘Good luck, good night’ ‘Mad world, mad kings, mad composition’ by William Shakespeare. Alliteration Another very common figure of speech known as alliteration is simply the repetition of the beginning alphabet – words that begin with the same sounds in a row or close to a row. Alliteration is more often used as a slogan in pubic banners or advertisements to make it interesting and eye-catching for the public. It is a poetic technique mainly used by poets and philosophers in their interesting poems.

It must be noted here that alliteration is only about the sound of words, the letter doesn’t matter like ‘k’ and ‘c’ could be used alternatively as well as ‘s’ and ‘c’ such as ‘cookie’ , ‘kitchen and ‘cycle’, ‘smart’. For example:- Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Haris happily helped the homeless. Come and clean your cupboard. Mickey Mouse or Miney Mouse. Donald Duck. Dunk ‘in Doughnuts. Euphemism This refers to the use of inoffensive words intend to replace the offensive or harsh or rude words. Euphemism substitutes the offensive words with more gentle words. Their examples are more than interesting:- Saying ‘letting you go’ to the employee instead of saying ‘you’re fired’ Informing others about the death of someone, using ‘passed away’ instead of ‘died’ ‘ethnic cleansing’ instead of ‘genocide’ ‘pregnancy termination’ instead of ‘abortion or miscarriage’ These are just a few types of figures of speech but all of them are of great importance and commonly used by everyone.

Next time when you find something that has another meaning than its literal meaning in your future conversations with your friends and family, let us know in the comments below! How Imagination Shapes Your Reality | Spirituality & Health Magazine Spirituality & Health Magazine Image by Alexandra Eldridge / alexandraeldridge.com By: 2013 March-April How Imagination Shapes Your Reality A growing body of research supports what spiritual contemplatives have known for Millennia—that the human capacity for imagination not only shapes our minds but also weaves the fabric of reality itself. Tags: Neuroscience Do you have a lemon in your kitchen? Put this magazine down for a moment, go cut the fruit in half, and squeeze some juice into your mouth. Notice how you react. Don’t have a lemon? Try this little thought experiment: Imagine that you have one. Picture yourself slicing through the bright yellow rind, exposing the translucent fruit inside. See yourself holding it up, squeezing it, and letting a stream of tart juice splash onto your tongue. Can you feel yourself puckering and salivating—not in your mind’s eye, but in “real life”?

Western thinkers have tended to draw a line between reality—that which we “actually” experience—and imagination, seen as a frivolous, dreamlike diversion. For millennia, though, spiritual contemplatives and artists have taken flights of fancy much more seriously and challenged the firmness of that line. And surprising recent advances in neuroscience, particularly in the field of brain scanning, have added support to their conviction that our imagination and sense of reality are closely intertwined. In some ways this is obvious. Back in 1928, the sociologists W. I. Thomas and D. S. Thomas conceived of what became known as the Thomas theorem, which states, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” My college sociology professor put it this way: If we believe that little green goblins are hiding in the woods and we change our route to avoid them, then our fantasy has affected our experience. That may seem like an extreme example, but imagination plays a very real role in our decision making. Just look at the last two US presidential elections, in which one big chunk of the electorate managed to view Barack Obama as a radical socialist, while another saw him as a moderate saint.

Both views are heavily based on myth, but they had a real-life effect on how people voted. Political races are hardly the only arena in which we project goblins into our daily lives. Too often humanity is ruled by superstitions, stereotypes, and tribal prejudices—resulting in all-too-real suffering, violence, and war. The folly of these antagonisms became especially clear when human beings made the first journey into space and saw that the supposedly entrenched divisions between countries were just imaginary lines on a map. As Frank Borman, commander of the Apollo 8 mission, put it, “When you’re finally up at the moon looking back on Earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you’re going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world, and why the hell can’t we learn to live together like decent people?” YOUR BRAIN ON IMAGINATION Our mind can run away with us, leading us to act through suspicion or fear, but we can also use our imagination as a tool to change our life—a process we’re beginning to understand through advances in neuroscience.

For centuries, we have envisioned two separate areas of the brain: one that processes the evidence gathered by our senses, and one that spins off into gauzy daydreams. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has helped us understand that these two functions are not as distinct as they seem. Using fMRI scans, researchers like V. S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, have found that the same cells in the brain light up whether we perform an action ourselves or watch someone else do it—which might explain why some of us find action movies so exciting. But these “mirror neurons” aren’t activated just by the things we see. The effect also occurs when we simply imagine ourselves performing the action. As a novelist and writing teacher, I have long told my students that vivid writing lights up the brain. Recently, I was excited to learn that this is not just a metaphor. In a New York Times article titled “Your Brain on Fiction,” the science writer Annie Murphy Paul surveyed fMRI studies that show that reading about sensory stimuli or physical actions activates the same brain areas that process real-life experiences.

When you read about that lemon at the beginning of this essay, you were activating the same region that would have been turned on if you had actually tasted the juice. There’s more. “There is evidence,” continues Paul, “that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life social encounters.” This has a profound import, not only for book lovers, but also for those who hope for a more peaceable planet. Paul cites studies by two Canadian psychologists that show that “individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them, and see the world from their perspective.” That doesn’t mean fiction writers should make their work into a gooey project to present characters as positive role models. In fact, I’m often intrigued by authors who create characters who are ornery, difficult, or downright unlikable—a good writer can help us to understand and care about people who are radically different from ourselves and to delve beneath surface differences to the common feelings and thoughts that could bind us together.

It raises the question: if humanity’s embattled factions had to write stories based on each other’s experience, how would that affect humanity’s willingness to wage war? MALLEABLE MINDS Imagination can provide us with rich lifelike experiences and give us a powerful opportunity to develop empathy and compassion. But it can do even more: it can literally reshape and retrain our brains. For ages, scientists have believed that our neural networks become rigidly set and defined in early childhood, but fMRI scanning now reveals plasticity: the adult brain is surprisingly malleable. If, for example, we go blind in midlife, some of our neurons for processing vision can shift to dealing with sound. What’s particularly exciting is the discovery that focused mental exercise can alter the brain. For example, scans of some of Tibet’s most advanced lamas found that through years of meditation they had strengthened the centers in the brain that deal with such vital life skills as attention, emotional balance, and compassion. A number of contemplative practices directly recruit the power of imagination to retrain the mind.

For many people the Sanskrit word tantra may conjure images of wild sex, but a Tantric practitioner may be more concerned with visualizing a certain deity in order to strengthen her own ability to share in the divine being’s positive attributes, such as patience or kindness. Of course, contemplation doesn’t have to focus on deities. My introduction to Buddhism started with a simple mental exercise. Eight years ago when I was going through a painful divorce, I stumbled into a Buddhist lecture about dealing with anger. “Let’s say you’re sitting on a park bench,” said the teacher. “Now someone sits down next to you and they’re doing something you find annoying, like popping their gum or singing along with the music in their headphones.” Our first reaction is usually to see the person as an external problem and to blame them for making us angry or depressed. Instead, the teacher asked us to change our thinking. “Imagine that you want to become more tolerant.

Then you could say, This is great: Here’s somebody who has come along to help me work on that!” As the Buddhist author Pema Chödrön argues in her book The Places That Scare Us, “Without the inconsiderate neighbor, where will we find the chance to practice patience? Without the office bully, how could we ever get the chance to know the energy of anger so intimately that it loses its destructive power?” These teachers showed me that if I can use my imagination to help me perceive situations in a different light, I can turn all sorts of “problems” into constructive challenges—and radically alter my experience of life. WHAT IS REAL? The transformative power of focused imagination is central to Buddhist practice, but the Buddha himself was not content to rest there. Late in life, he confounded many of his followers with a stronger, stranger notion. The teacher of my first Buddhist lecture introduced it simply. He held up a book and asked, “How many of you think that this exists independently of your mind?” Like the others, I raised my hand. “How do you know it exists?” he pressed. Answers bounced back.

“I can see it”; “I can feel it”; “I can taste or hear it.” After some discussion, we realized that the only way we knew the book was there was by interpreting what came in through our senses. The teacher pointed out that this is true of everything in our lives: objects, our friends and families, what we learned in school, everything. Ultimately, Buddhists argue, there is no such thing as objective reality out there. The point is not a nihilistic one, that nothing exists, but rather that no thing has a detached, fixed identity. Phenomena “do not exist in their own right,” says the Dalai Lama, “but only have an existence dependent upon many factors, including a consciousness that conceptualizes them.” Where I see a “book,” a rain forest aborigine might see only “strange object made out of pressed-together leaves.” Our whole experience of life is filtered through our minds, and we continually project our own sense of meaning onto people and things. As the Buddha put it, “With our thoughts we make the world.” In short, our imagination is not an alternative to reality. Our imagination is our reality.

Gabriel Cohen is the author of Storms Can’t Hurt the Sky: A Buddhist Path Through Divorce and five novels. Find his work at gabrielcohenbooks.com. Change Your Reality These meditation exercises tap your imagination for powerful results. Meditation for Stress Relief Sit with good posture, breathing slowly and deeply, and check every part of your body to make sure you’re not holding tension. Then as you breathe out, imagine that you’re releasing all of your pent-up worries as a column of black smoke floating into a clear blue sky. Picture this column of smoke dissipating in the breeze. After a couple of minutes of this, when you breathe in, imagine yourself inhaling a warm golden light that flows through your body and completely relaxes you. Meditation for Conflict Try this counterintuitive exercise to deal with those seemingly difficult people in your life. Buddhists call it tonglen, or taking and giving. Sit in a meditation posture and do the relaxation exercise above. Then think of someone with whom you’re having problems (a coworker, your ex, a relative, a former friend). This time, imagine that you’re breathing in their troubles and worries as dark smoke.

Then imagine that you’re exhaling a warm golden light toward them. Synecdoche - Definition and Examples "And let us mind, faint heart n'er wan A lady fair." (Robert Burns, "To Dr. Blalock") "Rationalizing guilt is a common trait of white-collar criminals." (Larry J. Siegel, Criminology, 2012) "At midnight I went on deck, and to my mate's great surprise put the ship round on the other tack. His terrible whiskers flitted round me in silent criticism." (Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer) 9/11 as Synecdoche "As a date, '9/11' is both singular and essentially repeatable. . . .

Whenever the term '9/11' is used in this way a marker is put down referring us to this day, 9/11/2001, as if citation of this date (or its foreshortening as 9/11) is enough by the power of reference, and the power of its referent , to understand that day and to be affiliated with all that this day entails." (Martin McQuillan, Deconstruction After 9/11. Routledge, 2009) Thomas Macaulay's Use of Synecdoche "In many of the stories [British historian Thomas] Macaulay told he insinuated a more vivid sense of shared Englishness, as when he presented a few Devonian rustics as 'the English people,' forming 'the most favourable opinion' of William's piety after he landed with his invading army. Apart from anaphora and hyperbole , synecdoche may be Macaulay's favorite trope. To 'brand' his version of English nationality into his readers' minds, he artfully selected the parts he conflated with 'the whole nation.'" (Robert E Sullivan, Macaulay: The Tragedy of Power.

Harvard University Press, 2009) Synecdochic Characters and Concepts - "Synecdoches are ways in which we construct our understanding of the whole, although we only have access to the part. Synecdoches are part of our general cultural heritage and exist in literature as well as science. Archetypes, mythic characters, gods and goddesses have all been viewed as synecdochical, as have some literary characters, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Desdemona, Romeo, Juliet, Jane Eyre, and Willy Loman. - "Within science writing, synecdoches are common as well. For example, DNA is a synecdoche for life, the test tube for experiment, the statistical test for proof, and Tally's corner for a kind of social organization." (Laurel Richardson, Writing Strategies: Reaching Diverse Audiences. Sage, 1990) Metonymy and Synecdoche - "[I]t is often difficult to distinguish between metonymy and synecdoche.

Plastic = credit card is a case of synecdoche because credit cards are made from plastic, but it is also metonymic because we use plastic to refer to the whole system of paying by means of a prearranged credit facility, not just the cards themselves. In fact, many scholars do not use synecdoche as a category or term at all." (Murray Knowles and Rosamund Moon, Introducing Metaphor. Routledge, 2006) - "Cochin's Americanised hyper-hotel Le Meridien advertises its seafood restaurant with the slogan 'local catch, global taste.' The phrase is unoriginal: such formulae grace near-identical hotel malls around the globe. The translation from metonymy to synecdoche, though, is paradigmatic: in cooking, the 'catch' ceases to be merely adjacent, becomes an integral part of the whole cuisine. "(Though the distinction is often collapsed, technically, metonymy substitutes something adjacent or adjunct for the object implied ['Oval Office' for President], whereas synecdoche substitutes an integral part for the whole thing ['The moving finger writes'].)" (Stand Smith, Globalisation And Its Discontents.

D.S. Brewer, 2006) Synecdoche in the News "The daily press, the immediate media, is superb at synecdoche, at giving us a small thing that stands for a much larger thing. Reporters on the ground, embedded or otherwise, can tell us about or send us pictures of what happened in that place at that time among those people. The overarching theory rationalizing the great expense and effort that goes into those little stories is they somehow give us access to the big story, the big picture, what is really going on. . . . "But synecdoche works only if the part really does stand for the whole. And that is something you often cannot know until long after the moment." (Bruce Jackson, "Bringing It All Back Home." CounterPunch, Nov.

26, 2003) Synecdoche in Song Lyrics "Some common forms of synecdoche are exemplified by these [song] titles: 'Take Back Your Mink' (raw material for finished product); 'Rum and Coca Cola' (trade name for generic product); 'Love Me, Love My Pekinese' (species for genus); 'Willie, Mickey, and the Duke' ( nickname /first name/last name for person/thing); 'Woodstock' (place for event)." (Sheila Davis, Successful Lyric Writing. Writer's Digest Books, 1988)

Question: """Imagination encircles the world"" is an example of what figure of speech?"
Answer: Metaphor