We’re also sorry for the long hiatus in journals.  We’ve been traveling almost constantly, and haven’t quite learned how to manipulate goofy images of politicians on our Blackberry.

 But Figaro will not abandon figures. He promises.

Quote: 

Figure of Speech:  cacosyntheton (cak-o-SIN-the-ton), the bad speech. From the Greek, meaning “badly composed.”

When the silver-tongued Obama speaks badly, it’s news.  He shows real discomfort in rebutting liberal accusations that he has flip-flopped on:

• Iraq  (he is slightly backing off his original pledge to withdraw troops),
• Gun control (he tepidly praised the Supreme court’s recent decision uphold the Second Amendment while ignoring the “well ordered militia” part), and
• The right to privacy (he supports expanding the feds’ wiretapping authority).

Dems have a reputation for their spinelessness, whether deserved or not, and a flip-flopping creature qualifies as an invertebrate.  (You may think that McCain has been flip-flopping like a large-mouth bass on a slippery dock. But he’s a war hero and a Republican, which by definition means he is not spineless but flexible.)

So Obama must show good posture by refuting the flip-flopping charges every time he flip-flops.  But here’s a rhetorical lesson:  Watch when a normally articulate politician speaks with awkward syntax.  It usually means he finds himself on shaky logical ground. Today’s quote uses a double negative, an isolated pronoun, and two pathetically dependent clauses to mean:  I’m not being political. You just don’t like what I say.

Then again, Figaro used to be anti-flip-flopping, but now he’s for it.  If only Bush had flip-flopped on Iraq a week before the invasion.

Snappy Answer:  “You’re just saying that to be political.”

Figure of Speech:  metallage (meh-TALL-uh-gee), the getting all medieval figure. From the Greek, meaning “making a swap.”

Are teens using oral sex to maintain their technical virginity? A recent study says no. Only 23 percent of teenagers who describe themselves as virgins say they have had oral sex in the last six months, while 82 percent of those who have had vaginal sex had also had oral sex.

The moral of that story, according to Sarah Brown, is for parents to “broaden the number of topics they discuss.”  You know, like birds, bees, fellatio…

Brown uses a currently popular idiom, “ick factor,” to describe the feeling that parents have when they hold a sexual discussion with the fruit of their loins. The expression qualifies as a metallage, a useful figure that takes parts of speech that aren’t nouns — such as verbs or adjectives — and uses them as the object of a sentence.

Samuel Jackson does this in the film Pulp Fiction, when he threatens “to get all medieval on your ass.”  Figaro assumes he was not referring to a sexual technique.

Snappy Answer:  “Do we have to embrace it? Can’t we, like, nod to it?”

Figure of Speech: dialogismus (dial-o-GIS-mus), the quoting figure.

It’s overtime again. Obama just can’t “close the deal,” as Clinton triumphantly puts it. Maureen Dowd, the feline columnist for the Times, sums up Hillary’s argument in a hyperbolic dialogismus, a figure that puts words in another person’s mouth — often in a way that the “quotee” wouldn’t exactly put herself.

Good point about the husband and the party leaders, though, Hill.

Snappy Answer:  Do we have to totally obliterate Iran? Can’t we just, like, obliterate it?

Figure of Speech:  antistasis (an-TIS-ta-sis), the repeat that changes meaning. From the Greek, meaning “opposing position.”

Want to undermine your opponent’s ethos? Puncture his favorite uplifting expression — not by arguing against it but by repeating it. The antistasis does  ju jitsu on an expression by flipping its meaning.

That’s what McCain does with Obama’s Audacity of Hope, the audaciously pretentious book title. The straight-talkin’ Republican turns audacious hope into something shifty and underhanded and raise- your- taxes- in- secretiveness.

Of course, what McCain says about the Democrats’ tax plans isn’t true. But we’re talking rhetoric here, not truth. And as Figaro likes to say, rhetoric doesn’t hurt people. People hurt people.

Snappy Answer:  “Which is why I’m offering every hard-working rich guy a tax cut.”

Figure of Speech: polysyndeton (polly-SIN-deh-ton), the conjunction repeater. From the Greek, meaning “multiple connectors.”

While Figaro hates the sin, he loves the polysyndeton. Obama’s use of it, figuratively speaking, is especially deft. By linking a whole set of examples with the conjunction “or,” he conjures an image of lost souls casting about for meaning.

Of course, he must be taking his lines right out of the Republicans’ Democrat Stereotyping Book. Arrogant? Patronizing? Dismissive of deeply held values? Check and check and check.

Two days before Obama coughed up that gaffe, Figaro’s flight out of San Antonio, Texas, got delayed an hour and a half because of a “ground stop.” Commercial flights were halted to make way for corporate jets flying in fatcats to watch the Final Four basketball playoffs. Call Figaro a lefty, but it seems like the whole country is in a similar kind of ground stop.

Meanwhile, the Democrats manage to make the Republicans seem like populists. Get used to saying “President McCain,” fellow Americans.

Snappy Answer:  “They’re not the only ones getting bitter.”

Figure of Speech: antonomasia (an-to-no-MAY-sia), the namer. From the Greek, meaning “other name.”

While Obama’s minister continues to haunt him, and Clinton channels Rocky, Senator McCain does an early victory lap around his angry boyhood.  In a speech to his old high school, McCain recalls his English teacher, a WWII war vet and football coach.

Offer merit increases, McCain implies, and Mr. Ravenels will be springing up all over the place — a fine antonomasia that makes his personal story universal and politically relevant. The antonomasia uses a person’s name to describe a set of traits, and it serves as a rhetorical incubator for eponyms.

“He helped teach me to be a man,” McCain says. You rarely hear that phrase from a Democrat — either because it’s sexist or because no Democratic male was ever initiated into the manly mysteries.

Figaro is an independent, but he counts himself among the machismoally agnostic. Then again, you’ll never find him running for president. Even as a woman.

Snappy Answer: “Please don’t propose a No Mr. Ravenel Left Behind Act.”

 Figure of Speech: enantiosis (eh nan tie OH sis), the figure of contraries. From the Greek, meaning “opposite.”

Figaro apologizes for his tardiness, a combination of constant travel and software problems.   (Does anyone know how to send group opt-in emails?) But you knew he would talk about Obama’s Big Speech eventually, didn’t you?

Thanks to his “God damn America” preacher, the Dems’ leading candidate has to walk a wobbly line between loyalty and disavowal. 

To his figurative credit, Obama manages to walk both sides of the paradoxical line with instinctive use of an enantiosis, a figure that lists a series of contraries side by side. (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”) It’s a wonderful way of showing the other side of a tarnished coin. In Obama’s case it implies that his personal loose canon blesses America—when he isn’t damning it. 

Still, with preachers like him, who needs ministers?

Snappy Answer:  “Is there one black experience?”

Quote:

Figaro of Speech: antisagoge (an tih sa GO gee), the Tevye figure.  From the Greek, meaning “balancing arguments.”

No, Figaro does not puruse state bar journals in his spare time. Today’s quote comes from Steve, who in Ask Figaro noted that some scientists say they can use MRI scans to tell a person’s honesty, innocence, or potential violence.

Figaro believes that all neuroscientists and law professors should study rhetoric. Brain scans have merely proven what our pals Aristotle and Gorgias knew already. For example, when you use a balanced figure like a chiasmus or one of the repetition figures, your audience’s brain fires up to complete the thought. (“Either we can control figures, or figures can…”) Acting agreeably jingles the pleasure center of the brain. Showing anger fires the audience’s amygdala, the fear and impulse center.

But the problem with brain scans is that they don’t define the terms. And how can you measure something you can’t define? Come up with a machine that can precisely parse “the truth” or “innocense,” and you’ll have Figaro’s rapt attention.

Prof. Greely is employing an antisagoge - - the on the one hand, on the other hand figure of thought. It makes you sound reasonable and fair-minded. Combine it with the reluctant conclusion (see p. 73 of Figaro’s book), and you can steer your audience without their even knowing it.

Snappy Answer: “Let us rush to ignore it. “

Figure of Speech: Hyperbaton (hy-PER-ba-ton), the disordered figure. From the Greek, meaning “switch around.”

The Nicholson ad uses a montage of movie clips, starting strangely with the Joker (“It’s time for who do you trust, hubba hubba hubba, money money money…”) and ending with A Few Good Men.

“Believe me gentlemen” is a kind of parenthesis, an insertion into a sentence that could stand on its own without it. The hyperbaton, a more generic figure, changes the usual word order. It’s a great way to emphasize part of a sentence, or delay the punchline:  “There is nothing sexier…wait for it…than a woman you have to salute in the morning.” (Note also the transposition of “on this earth” and “sexier”—same purpose).

Nicholson also uses the figure to hint at the tongue in his cheek; the ad wisely leaves out the rest of the quote, “Promote ‘em all, I say, ‘cause this is true: if you haven’t gotten [fellatio] from a superior officer, well, you’re just letting the best in life pass you by.”

Just when we were getting the image of Monica Lewinsky out of our heads.

Snappy answer:  “That depends on what you mean by ‘salute’ [insert leer].”