Enallage (; , ''enallagḗ'', "interchange") is one type of scheme of rhetorical

figures of speech A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.). In the ...

which is used to refer to the use of tense,

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form may also refer to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter dat ...

, or

person A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations suc ...

for a grammatically incorrect counterpart.Silva Rhetoricae (2006)
Enallage

Form

One use of enallage is to give a sentence improper form quite deliberately.

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

wrote, "‘Is there not wars? Is there not employment?’" ( 2nd Henry IV, I, ii) In these cases, he uses enallage to achieve parallel structure.

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

stated, "The idols are broke in the temple of

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

." Here he used the

past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...

form of ''break'' instead of the

past participle In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...

, ''broken,'' which should have been used. In the opening lines of the ''Aeneid'', Virgil speaks of the “walls of lofty Rome.” Daniel Mendelsohn, in ''The New Yorker'', cites this as an example of enallage: "The poet knew what he was doing—'lofty walls' is about architecture, but 'lofty Rome' is about empire," though arguably this figure could be considered '' hypallage,'' the transposition of the natural relations of two elements in a proposition. Another noted example is when professional prize fight manager Joe Jacobs cried, ''We was robbed!'', after his fighter lost a decision in 1932. Through this utterance Arthur Quinn claimed Jacobs "achieved for himself linguistic immortality." Apple's advertising slogan Think Different can be viewed as a deliberately incorrect grammatical construction.

References

* ''Holy Bible: Concordance.'' World Publishing Company: Cleveland. * Cuddon, J.A., ed. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory.'' 3rd ed. Penguin Books: New York, 1991. * * Spendlove, Loren Blake

''Limhi’s Discourse: Proximity and Distance in Teaching''. Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 8 (2014): 1–6. {{Reflist Figures of speech

Form

See also

References