Some Rhetorical Tools

parallelism

Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.

Examples:

parallelism of words:

She tried to make her pastry fluffy, sweet, and delicate.

parallelism of phrases:

Singing a song or writing a poem is joyous.

parallelism of clauses:

Perch are inexpensive; cod are cheap; trout are abundant; but salmon are best.

isocolon

A series of sentences or clauses having the same length. A kind of parallelism.

Examples:

"It takes a licking, but it keeps on ticking!"
(advertising slogan of Timex watches)

"I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, she's a Pepper, we're a Pepper--
Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too? Dr. Pepper!"
(advertising jingle for Dr. Pepper soft drink)

"Come then: let us to the task, to the battle, to the toil--each to our part, each to our station. Fill the armies, rule the air, pour out the munitions, strangle the U-boats, sweep the mines, plow the land, build the ships, guard the streets, succor the wounded, uplift the downcast, and honor the brave."
(Winston Churchill, speech given in Manchester, England, on Jan. 29, 1940)

tricolon

A rhetorical term for a series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses.

Examples:

"I require three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid."
(attributed to Dorothy Parker)

"You are talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe."
(The Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, 1939)

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.

"It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
(President Dwight Eisenhower, "The Chance for Peace." Speech delivered in 1953)

parison

A rhetorical term for corresponding structure in series of phrases or clauses--adjective to adjective, noun to noun, etc.

Examples:

"The closer you get, the better you look."

(advertising slogan for Nice 'n' Easy Shampoo)

The bigger they come, the harder they fall.

“Promise her anything, but give her Arpege."
(advertising slogan for Arpege perfume, 1940s)

chiasmus                              Gk. "a diagonal arrangement"

Repetition of ideas in inverted order

Repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order

Examples:

It is boring to eat; to sleep is fulfilling

The pattern is       ~ing - infinitive;
infinitive   - ~ing

“One should eat to live,
not live to eat.”
   —Cicero

“It's not the men in my life,
it's the life in my men.”
   — Mae West

“The two most engaging powers of an author, are,
to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.”

— Dr. Samuel Johnson

some more examples

antimetabole

        Gk. anti “in opposite direction” and metabole “turning about”

Repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order.

Examples:

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. —John F. Kennedy

You can take the gorilla out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the gorilla.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. —Samuel Johnson,

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; …—Isaiah 5:20