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Playing with Words Video

Added Nov 11, 2013 •

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"Words, words. They're all we have to go on." - Tom Stoppard

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play Caspar and I are going to talk to you about playing with words first words in sound okay alliteration you're already familiar with alliteration is the repetition of sounds especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words and keep in mind that this is about sound so the catchy chess I don't know catchy and chest the reverse thanks however the nice knitting not even though let's start with an K&G right Casper they have alliteration because it's about the sound so the effects of alliteration is that it reinforces the meaning sometimes that unifies ideas so put these two ideas together you think about them both since this silky snakes satellite slithered it sounds kind of subtle and sneaky another example is don't dream it drive it Jaguar so by having the repeated D4 dream and drive and emphasizes that when you're driving a you are driving a dreaming this is what sorry forgot about that animation and there's a snake anything to Jaguars like it sounds preceded by different how sounds this is usually the last or last accented syllable so in Macbeth when it says life is a poor player that struts and that's his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more struts and Frets have that identical consonant sounds at TS at the end thank you stop on so it links them together but it's not as pretty as rhyme and skip passage like that it sounds pretty but it's also has kind of an onomatopoeia sound going on with repetition of the ending sound and short and sweet because they both have the T sound so it unites them a little it's kind of like alliteration but it's quite as holy uniting as a rhyme so in poem by Wilfred Owen right about world R1 he says let the boy try long his band that played how cold steel is and Keene with Hunger of blood so this isn't a poem and often you would expect that poems with rhyme but by choosing to use consonants instead of rhyme he emphasizes that war isn't pretty right blade and blood are still associated with each other but it doesn't have the same sort of wholesome Unity as normal rhyme would give Casper left is the same vowel sound near the end so both assonance and consonance can result in slant rhyme they have one element of rhyme but not all of it so in an ad for the Hoover vacuum it says it feeds as it sweeps as it cleans so that repetition of the E kind of United song but not to be like that perfect dog on TV show Casper fast that in my quest I felt depressed and Restless by a band Thin Lizzy I'm so again it's very United with all of the F sounds but it's not as pretty as rhyme which makes sense for that passage because the person is restless  so then men's plus consonance equal rhyme  assonance and consonance I'm right because what is the pound it has consonants with the indie sound and it has assonance with the owl sound and then if you have both of them it rhymes sound of a pound is the band for the super LOL yeah  onomatopoeia is a figure of in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words an onomatopoeia examples include the things that you've been taught since elementary school bang whistle choo choo but also if we look at this poem I'm assuming by John Updike it says my stick fingers click with a Snicker and chuckling they Knuckles the keys I'm so there we have some normal expected onamonapia words like click but then when it's I'm in the context of the passage stick Snicker chuckling knuckle those are all those are all onomatopoeia words because they're making the sounds of his fingers actually making contact with don't forget that euphonious and cacophonous language with we already covered our exam roles of word sounds too so here we have some examples of them so it was a terrible summer for Humpty Dumpty but he had a great fall and then we have assault with a deadly weapon and our base is under attack and a killer whale so this is all when is the general term wit  introduce puns I guess not all wet needs to include pun what is intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights a witty statement is humorous while suggesting the speaker's verbal power and creating ingenious and perceptive them so this is why at the grams are so different from effort aphorisms because they're on precising the wit so that's going to suggest things about the speaker language that makes a point that statement so you can describe the overall style of a work as witty play the last section of our Point C is also suggesting that we can look at an epigram as just an example of what and so again got to have Oscar Wilde fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every 6 months it's delightful because we don't think about fashion as being fat for was going to do but you know okay so then hyperbole hyperbole is a figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement the literal Greek for hyperbole overshoots I saw an example from To His Coy Mistress which is a great poem by Andrew Marvell is my vegetable love should grow faster than Empire send more slow so it's being hyperbolic both in its description of how slowly the level grow by describing it as vegetable love I'm and then exaggerating in terms of size faster than Empires a million examples of hyperbole that's actually probably what's a hyperbole because they're probably are a million example so if I changed it to I can think of a million examples of hyperbole than that be okay oh and there's the vegetable oh that was growing I was going to come watch the understatement and this is the chronic minimalizing of a fact a statement that is restrained and ironic contrast what might have been set and it is can actually have two very different effects it can be humorous or it can be infatic so example here by Jonathan Swift initially seems kind of humorous but then when you think about it it really exposes how horrible what he's discussing his soul this week I saw a woman flayed and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worst played means to be whipped until your skins removed so it's a nun meant to say that it altered her person for the worst like I make her sound like she got a bad haircut and so that makes the audience sort of pause and think it was far worse than that this was purple so that's making adding emphasis with the understatement and then most famous example of understatement as far as I'm concerned is from Mighty Python and the quest for the Holy Grail I'm is a form of understatement in that involves making a point by denying its opposite so it intensifies the sentiment and try the writer increase the effects of strong feelings moderately can bathe which is similar to understatement like it's like all of that person's being really cool about this but it's a big deal so that's not a bad idea so instead of saying that's a good idea it's a for me or denying the opposite or from next quote from Alexander Pope if you can tell the fair one's mind it will be no small proof of your art for I daresay it more is more than she herself very nice about this um Fair woman but it will be no small proof is litote instead of it saying it will be a huge have your heart and skill you saying it's no small group right now and example is I will not be sad to see Christmas time what it's going to say begin euphemism euphemism is from the Greek for good speech it's a more agreeable or less offensive substitute for a generally unpleasant thought or concept could be so as not to like hurt people's feelings or hurt their sense of propriety also to hear the political or spell standards can also add humor and kind of work as an ironic understatement so none of these apple tree Earthly remains for corpse pre-owned for used cars and you can see the rhetoric in that and I have a nice quote you from when's our unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne so then I created this animation to express that so there is unpleasant truth then there's the Diplomatic cologne recipe self-contradictory or post a common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of Truth ability so when you think about a paradox when you first see it it seems to your day and then it exposes greater truths like you think about a little longer I get it so I never found the companion that was so companion at solitude can even know yourself calm and then another example is I found the Paradox that if you love until it hurts there can be no more hurt but only more love and that is for mr. Egan it's a pair of docks oxymoron oxymorons from Greek for pointedly foolish and this is about juxtaposition so all oxymoron future paradox but they create Paradox by putting two seemingly contradictory things right next to each other and all this isn't antithesis it's not so you see the opposite but it's so that they I seem to contradict and then expose greater truth so how is it possible to have a civil war George Carlin is putting sit next to each other will exposing that we often do when discussing Civil Wars to show that they're contradictory and thus traps exposing greater truth about the nature of War not being civil in the terms being wrong and then parting is such sweet sorrow sweet sorrow seems like an ox seems like that can't possibly be but there's a Sweetness in the partying in the sorrow because you know that you'll be I'm together once more jumbo shrimp is everyone's favorite example of that which is pretty awesome  Anaheim I thought those were going to be over this use of a word so when you read the word you're supposed to see it in both senses and just to clarify puns not necessarily for humor and of course now here both of my examples are humor but say in Macbeth Duncan who's the king of facts about to kill not a big spoiler that happens early talks about Macbeth's love as being sharp as his turn and when he says sharp he means like passionate urging him on but when the audience who knows that Macbeth planning on killing him if they think like the nights it's about to stab him that's not for humor unless you're a horrible person that's like haha good King room came out it is sweeping the nation is like an arrow fruit flies like a banana Next Level dance alright I did not check how to pronounce that word so I'm hoping it wrong and I classic I don't know patient of a word in two different senses I'm so this is a special type of fun the next few words are going to be special types of funds so mostly so that you can identify different sorts of ways to play on words so this one you repeat the word and you mean one thing the first time you say it and something else the second time you say it so Benjamin Franklin says your argument is sound all sound the first time when he says sound he means like valid truthful honest and the second time he means it's new meaning list I made like take that people and talking about their argument to and then if you are fired with enthusiasm you will be fired with that was the first time I'd like passionate with enthusiasm on the second time you're fired and then we have Benjamin Franklin let's all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately so the first hang is like stick stay together as a second hang is die suffocation the Lexus which is very similar to ellipses which is kind of power remember this one because in this one the words only said twice normally need to be repeated but you it's connected to two other work two or more words and each one requires a different understand so Steve the one where it into completers to force two meanings examples will help so fix the problem not the blame so and that one fix is used in two senses when we were late it to the first computer the problem and means like make better get rid of the that was a bad definition of sex you know what I'm talking about when we were late means place so has two different meanings that both need to be understand for the next date for the sake of that sentence and then he lost his hat and his temper the first loss means misplaced and lost some means that he's being all angry now  and then paronomasia another one that I didn't look up how to pronounce I'm at Steve's of words like in sound but different in meaning so this one's all going to be about the homophone so your children need your presence more than your presents I'm so it's a play off of the sound of presents and that one's similar to the first sight plate repeats the word whereas number being similar to the second type so punted its own reward so it's playing off of reward and and then it's all of my should Christmas presents for Christmas and then maybe it'll help with Jones turn off here come out there and use rhetoric well

Uploaded by Melissa Rhoades-Rudder '01.

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