Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase

Short, easy to read. Full of great examples. Will make you a better speaker and heighten your appreciation of great literature, as well as showing you the techniques used by playwrights, poets, politicians, lawyers, clergy, and all others who earn their bread with their tongues. An eye-opener.

Professor Quinn's slim volume is perhaps the best treatment of the subject of rhetorical devices that I have ever read. I say "best," not because it is the most extensive, nor because it is the most detailed coverage of the subject. I say "best" because I feel it is the most *useful* coverage I have ever encountered. In concise fashion, Professor Quinn takes the reader through many of the most common figures of speech, tells us the formal names, and provides numerous illustrative examples. It is true that simply knowing the name given to a particular turn of phrase will not guarantee that one can effectively employ it in one's writing. Nevertheless knowing the forms and having names to identify them makes it easier to see them in use in the writing of others. By thus making them memorable, they also become a more ready part of one's writing toolkit. The engaging and entertaining style which Quinn uses throughout the book makes even the most daunting technical terms readily accessible. His well-chosen examples are also entertaining and informative, and most are quite memorable. I can't be certain that merely reading this book will improve every reader's writing, but I believe that most folks will benefit from reading it.

I recommend this book for anyone who would like a few more clues on the many ways masterful sentences are put together. If you have the soul for good writing, but need a little more concrete guidance on how powerful phrases from the Bible to Virgil to Shakespeare to Churchill are constructed--this book will be a delightful teacher. I was impressed by the lighthearted and humble approach of the author. Although he gives the formal (and quite forgettable) names for the figures of speech, he says he doesn't expect readers to remember the names, but rather to "taste" the examples he cites, and to get a feel for how to apply these patterns in their own writing. He repeatedly stresses that knowing how to use words and rhetorical patterns is far more important than memorizing their names or even agreeing upon their proper classifications. The author also cites classics ancient and modern in making the unconventional and refreshing point that we need not slavishly follow the dictates of the now-popular rules of usage as promulgated by Strunk and White and other like-minded authorities. For example, while contemporary authorities repeatedly (yes, ironically) stress the importance of avoiding any unnecessary words, the author of Figures of Speech cites many passages from the Bible, Shakespeare, and other sources of distinction, that clearly do not follow such strictures--and choose elaboration and repitition over spare economy. Overall, the book is informative, accessible, generous-spirited, and, in places, even humorous and playful. When I got to the end of the slim volume I found myself wishing there was more.

"Figures of Speech: 60 ways to turn a phrase," by Arthur Quinn (Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley) is truly worth it's weight in gold. This book is not a stuffy academic classroom text...it is a sleek, extremely funny and stimulating resource that will undoubtedly add tremendous value to your knowledge of writing the "Queen's English." Moreover, Professor Quinn's book is super provocative, superbly written and succinct...allowing the reader to go cover to cover in a few short hours. Quinn challenges the reader..."We are confronted, inescapably, with the intoxicating possibility that we can make language do for us almost anything we want." In other words, the author "thinks outside the box" long before it became fashionable to do so. I'll never forget a groundbreaking banner front-page headline in the New York Daily News back in the 1970's, it read, "We Wuz Robbed!" The headline reported that masked gunmen broke into the payroll office and stole millions in typical New York City lingo. Apparently the editors in the Daily News Building agreed with Quinn's approach to effective writing that "style, is like a frog: you can dissect the thing, but it somehow dies in the process." Each chapter in this marvelous book is short and compact. My favorite chapters include, Missing Links and Headless Horsemen, Man Bites Dog and Reds in the Red. In a nutshell, Quinn demands that we navigate the jungles of style creatively and includes many figures of speech through out his book to stimulate the learning process. Overall, this book is a joy to read. In the words of the author, "language becomes a prison house only poets can escape...if we do not reject any strict distinctions between ordinary usage and figures of speech."Bert Ruiz

"A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms" provides a more complete study, but "Figures of Speech" is more user-friendly, more entertaining, more compact, more useful. "Handlist" proved to be more scholarly, "Figures" more practical. "Handlist" arranges the figures alphabetically, "Figures" by type. "Handlist" gives a few examples, "Figures" many. I found the examples in "Figures" to be lyrical, the commentaries whimsical, the results educational.