Do you know what chiasmus is? Nope, it's not a rare medical condition. Unless you consider humorous wordplay to be contagious. The following sentence is an example of chiasmus:
I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was. (Thank you Toby Keith)
I had never heard the term until I ran across a book titled Viva La Repartee! by Dr. Mardy Grothe. I enjoyed the book so much, I went to the associated website. From there, I found two more sites - chiasmus.com and oxymoronica.com.
Back to chiasmus. Chiasmus is defined as a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases. Take a look at the example above. See it? Once I had a definition, I found several more examples, sayings everyone is familiar with. "Quitters never win, winners never quit." I'm sure everyone has heard that one a time or two.
I enjoy wordplay, of any kind. This one however, fascinates me, simply because without knowing the word, I knew exactly what chiasmus was. Bet you did too.
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Humor AND Education. You are a wonder, morpho. ;)
ReplyDeleteJFK used chiasmus a lot: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
yep, that one is featured, i like mae west's the best :D
ReplyDeleteMae West, eh? Oooo, sassy!
ReplyDeleteI kinda liked Groucho Marx's myself, lol.
There's a great chiasmus gag in Mystery Men; have you seen that?
ReplyDeleteno, i haven't. Thanks for the info, now i have to find the movie.
ReplyDelete:)
William H Macy, Ben Stiller, Jeanne Garafolo or how-you-spell (I'd look it up but I'm on my concubine's computer & everything's too awkward). Funny for us, though tastes differ.
ReplyDelete