Writing Tip of the Month: Beyond the Simile
By Justin Bai, Northwood High School
There are many ways to play with words and sentence structures. Although most of us are familiar with common devices like the simile, there are many other ways to make your sentences more interesting. Consider the following...
Ellipsis
Example: “You love the rain, and I the snow.”
Ellipsis is the removal of a word or phrase that can be understood from context. In the example, the word “love” is removed (“and I [love] the snow”). Ellipsis can be a useful technique to remove redundancy from writing. Also, keep in mind that ellipsis is common in spoken language, so it may be useful to use when writing dialog. For example, if a person says, “Please visit me,” one might reply “I will,” rather than saying, “I will visit you.”
Syllepsis
Example: “[A piano] is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.” — Ambrose Bierce,
Syllepsis refers to when a word is used so that it applies to two other words such that the word must be understood in different senses. As you can see in the example, the word “depressing” is used in two distinct senses: “pushing downward” and “disheartening.” This can give a witty quality to your writing since it involves wordplay.
Hyperbaton
Example: “I usually hate mustaches, but John's mustache I'll tolerate.”
Hyperbaton is deviation from standard word order. In English, sentences are usually structured in a subject-verb-object word order. However, in the example, note the change in word order in the second half of the sentence. “John’s mustache,” the object of the sentence, is at the beginning, which is contrary to standard word order (“I’ll tolerate John’s mustache). Hyperbaton can be used to fix writing that seems to have a repetitive or monotonous quality. Also, one may use hyperbaton in poetry to adjust sentences for meter and rhyme.
