This week, my rhetoric students are charging into arrangement and style--the fun part of the semester. Their assignment for next time will be to write a brief piece called "My Favorite Trope." Here's one I wrote when I was at Pitt:
Zeugma
Like many
Greek words for figures of speech, zeugma was borrowed for rhetoric from
another practice: in this case the practice of sailing, or more specifically
docking. Translated joining or bonding, zeugma was originally used to name the rope
used to tie boats together at a dock. In grammar, too, zeugma involves using a
verb (or adjective) to hook together more than one object or dependent clause.
The verb functions as the grammatical rope, binding together the parts of a
sentence. Zeugma thus enables economy even as it draws attention to the
complexity or bendability of words. The most interesting instances of zeugma exploit
multiple nuances of the verb, as in “I tried the salesman’s shoes, he my
patience.” The result is often a surprise.
Journalists
seem to love zeugma for its economy. Just before the 2004 election on NPR, an announcer observed,
“With one week to go until the election, the candidates are spending their time
and advertising dollars in the 11 key swing states.” If I were a journalist, a
headline of mine would be “President Bush wasting time, lives.”
Zeugma can
also be found in pop music. Just yesterday during a game of one-on-one, I was
pounding the backboards and my opponent at Bellefield when I heard this zeugma
over the loudspeaker, which was blaring Alanis Morrissette: “You held your
breath and the door for me.” And who can forget Billy Ocean
begging his fantasy woman to “get out of my dreams and into my car”? Probably
those who never heard of Billy Ocean.
Because
of its novelty and surprise, the zeugma can also be memorable and even funny,
as with one satirical headline from The Onion from way back when the Clintonscandal broke, “President
feels Nation’s Pain, Breasts.” (hat tip to my colleague JE for that one)
In the
future when you hear the term zeugma, if you can’t recall the ropes that bound
together the ancient boats, you might think about the ancient town of Belkis, situated at the southeastern edge of Turkey. When the Romans conquered Belkis in 64BCE, a town they saw as a bridge or link from
Greece to Turkey, they changed the town’s name to nothing other than—you
guessed it—Zeugma. Thus marks the binding, transformative power of empire, and
language.