Beware – this rhetorical device is the vehicle of choice for the facile thoughts of morons. Perfect for soundbites, it truly is the exclusive preserve of idiots wishing to affect an air of great profundity.
Simply put it is the grammatical game of taking a statement and then repeating it re-ordered to either negate the original, refute it or redeem it. But enough of this, you just need a few samples to get the gist of this linguistic idiocy.
“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.” Rita Mae Brown
“Work to live, don’t live to work.” A common platitude
“Nice to see you, to see you nice” Bruce Forsyth
“It is not even the beginning of the end but is perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Winston Churchill
This article was posted by Ronan McDonnell on
Friday, August 20th, 2010 at
13:12.
It is archived in Short Post and tagged game, language, linguistics, rhetoric, silly.
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hey man I like it. I’m going to write more articles and put your ideas to the test. After all, we always have something new to learn and being humble, I came here to learn. Bookmarked.
- John