超强英语修辞
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Access to English Figures of Speech
《英语常用修辞入门》
李翼宏
世界图书出版公司
simile [] 明喻
like, as, as though,
what, than …
e.g. Living without an aim is
like sailing without a compass. (John Ruskin)
Just as Darwin discovered the law of
development of organic nature, so Marx
discovered the law of development of human
history. (Engels)
Truth and roses have thorns
about them.
metaphor 隐喻
n., v., adj.,
of
Compare: The soldier was as brave as a
lion in the battle.
The soldier was a lion in
the battle.
e.g. She has a photographic
memory for detail.
The mountainous waves
swallowed up the ship.
While most of us are
only too ready to apply to others the cold wind of
criticism, we
are somewhat reluctant to give
our fellow the warm sunshine of praise. (Janet
Granham: The Profits of Praise)
metonymy 借代
两个相互借代的事物必然紧密相关，存在某种现实的联系
e.g. What is learned in the cradle is carried
to the grave.
A thousand mustaches can live
together, but not four breasts.
（
synecdoche
）
The pen is mightier than
the sword.
Whenever my husband has a bad day
at the office, he hits the bottle.
She has
the eye for the fair and beautiful.
It is a
pity that there is more ignorance than knowledge
in the country.
The Pentagon
parody
[i] 仿拟
层次：单词，短句，句子，篇章
e.g. I had no
outlook, but an uplook rather. My place in society
was at the bottom.
Modern journalism
justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian
principle of the
survival of the vulgarest.
(Oscar Wilde) 最庸俗者生存
Where there is a will,
there is a lawsuit.
personification 拟人
e.g. Laziness travels so slowly, but poverty
soon
overtakes him. (Benjamin Franklin)
onomatopoeia [] 拟声
e.g. aha, clap, mew,
The angry husband
shut the door with a bang. My heart is banging
in my ears.
The drunken driver bang into the
store window.
“Bang! Bang!” shouted the boys
in imitation of gunfire.
euphemism 委婉
sweet talk, gilded words (镀金的字), cosmetic
words
the disadvantaged the poor, the gray
hair the golden ages the old, get the
walking ticket dismisssackfire
hyperbole [] 夸张
e.g.
Haven’t seen you for ages. I could sleep for
a year. We’re all tired to death.
His
eloquence would split rocks!
It is the last
straw that breaks the camel’s back.
parallelism 平行
4个层次：单词、短语、从句、句子
e.g.
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for
ability. (Francis Bacon: Of Studies)
读书足以怡情，足以博采，足以长才。
We can gain knowledge,
by reading, by reflection, by observation or by
practice.
contrast 对照
e.g.
United, there is little we cannot do in a host of
cooperative ventures. Divided,
there is little
we can do … (John F. Kennedy)
antithesis
[] 平行对照
parallelism + contrast
4个层次：单词、短语、从句、句子
e.g. Knowledge makes
humble, ignorance makes proud.
One hundred
years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of
poverty in the midst of a
vast ocean of
material prosperity.
A pessimist is one who
asks difficulties of his opportunities; an
optimist is one who
makes opportunities of his
difficulties.
oxymoron []
矛盾修饰
e.g. proud humility a
thunderous silence
John Donne, Devotions on
Emergent
Occasions
chaos of well-
seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke,
cold fire, sick health!
William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, scene 1
Andy Warhol
pun paronomasia []双关
e.g. We must all hang together, or we shall
all hang separately.
On Sunday they pray for
you and on Monday they prey on you.
zeugma [] 轭式搭配
e.g. He has
lost his temper and health in India, and had never
found either of them
again. Yesterday he
had a blue heart and coat.
allusion
引喻
e.g. What will it be when the increase
of yearly production is brought to a complete
stop? Here is the vulnerable place, the heel
of Achilles, for capitalistic production.
Book is a vehicle of learning and
enlightenment, an open sesame (芝麻) to countless
joys and sorrows.
irony反语
e.g. That’s a fine excuse. You’ve got us
into a nice mess.
transferred epithet
移位修饰 hypallage []
Figures of
Speech Page 2 of 4
Language
e.g. I spoke to them in hesitant
French. The Grapes of Wrath
repetition 反复
连续反复，间隔反复
e.g. Would you please please
please please please please please stop talking?
Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old
friends to trust, and old authors to read.
climax 层递
e.g. To acquire wealth is
difficult, to preserve it more difficult, but to
spend it wisely
most difficult.
Threaten
him, imprison him, torture him, kill him: you will
not induce him to betray
his country.
I am
sorry. I am so very sorry, I am so extremely,
sorry.
I came, I saw, I conquered. (Julius
Caesar)
anticlimax 突降
两项也可
e.g.
The explosion completely destroyed a church, two
houses, and a flowerpot.
It is a truth
universally acknowledged that a single man in
possession of a fortune must
be in want of a
wife. (Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice)
For
God, for America, and for Yale.
alliteration 头韵
songs of salvation
to salve the soul.
e.g. Money makes the mare
go. Dumb dogs are dangerous.
rhyme
尾韵
American Space, Chinese Place
(空间与位置：中美文化差异一瞥)；
East and West Dear
Student: We Pay If You Stay（人才难得）
synecdoche
[]
提喻
A
figure of speech in which a part is used
for
the whole, or the whole for a part.
e.g.
bread.
One would have thought that we would
find willing ears on the part of the
newspapers.
They were short of hands.
What figures of speech are used in
the following sentences?
1. The ice was here,
the ice was there.
The ice was all around
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled.
(迸裂、咆哮、吼鸣、嚎啸)
Like noises in a swound (=
swoon暂时失去知觉, 昏厥). （真个震耳欲聋）
2. A lie can travel
half around the world while the truth is putting
on its shoes. (Mark
Twain)
3. Education
is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of
a fire. (William B. Yeats)
4. Money is a
bottomless sea, in which honour, conscience, and
truth may be drowned.
(Kozlay)
5. The
case snowballed into one of the most famous trials
in US history.
6. He was such a marvelous
teacher that whenever he recognized a spark of
genius you
could be sure he’d water it.
7. I take thee to my wedded wife, to have and
to hold from this day forward, for better
or
worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in
health, to love and cherish, till
death do we
part, according to God’s holy ordinance, and
thereto I plight thee my
troth.
8.
Youth! The strength of it! The faith of it! The
faith of it, the imagination of it!
9. When
the going gets tough, the tough gets going.
(情况吃紧时，硬汉就吃香。)
10. The soldier faces the
powder while the beauty powders the face.
11.
People listened with open-mouthed astonishment
while the shocking news sank
in.
12.
Poly, I love you. You are the whole world to me,
and the moon and the stars and
the
constellation of outer space.
13. A drop of
ink may make a million think.
14. Read not to
contradict and confuse; nor to believe and take
for granted; not to find
talk and discourse;
but to weigh and consider. (Francis Bacon: Of
Studies)
读书时
不可存心诘难读者，不可尽信书上所言，亦不可只为寻章摘句，而应推敲细思。
15.
The world listens. The world watches. The world
waits to see what we will do.
16. Reading is
to the mind what exercise is to the body. (Sir
Richard Steel)
17. A student can no more
obtain knowledge without studying than a farmer
can get
Figures of Speech Page 3 of
4 Language
harvest without
ploughing.
18. Research, from being the
Cinderella of industry, would become its favoured
child.
19. You want your pound of flesh,
don’t you?
20. The candidate met his Waterloo
in the national elections.
21. Every man has
in himself a continent of undiscovered character.
Happy is he who
acts the Columbus to his own
soul.
22. Sea, sun, sand, seclusion(幽静)—and
Spain.
23. safe and sound
24.
Technological progress has merely provided us with
more efficient means for
going backwards.
25. Ten minutes later, the coffee and
Commander Dana of Naval Intelligence arrived
simultaneously.
26. The mother is
undergoing the joyful pain, and the painful joy of
childbirth.
27. The professor rapped on his
desk and shouted, “Gentlemen, order!”
The
entire class yelled, “Beer!”
28. Why is an
empty purse always the same? Because there is
never any change in it.
29. The wolf and the
pig mingled together in his
face（凶残和贪婪交织在一起，浮
现在他的脸上。）
30. The
25
th
Games in Barcelona saw 4 golds and 5
silvers in swimming fall into
China’s pockets.
31. The captain .. had fallen in possession of
a complete Shakespeare. (Jack London)
32. The
rather arresting spectacle of little old Japan
adrift amid beige concrete
skyscrapers is the
very symbol of the incessant struggle between the
kimono and the
miniskirt. (Jacquie Danvoir)
33. There is nothing more exhilarating to
nature-love than an early morning walk in
the
foot hill of the Himalayas: It lifts his spirits
above material concerns and inspires
in him
noble thoughts. It also makes him hungry.
34. To lie or not to lie—the doctor’s dilemma.
(To be, or not to be: that is the
question.)
35. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I
wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you
fly.
Like a teatray in the sky.
36. You can fool all the people some of the
time; and some of the people all the time,
but
you cannot fool all the people all the time.
37. Then I’ll feed the baby again, put the
baby to bed… What a life? Today, tomorrow,
this week, next week, this month, next month,
next year … forever!
38. Some read to think,
these are rare; some to write, these are common;
and some
read to talk, and these form the
great majority.
39. As casualties have
climbed, Bush's popularity has dropped.
40.
The first Human Security Report paints a
surprising picture of war and peace in
the
21st century: a dramatic decline in battlefield
deaths, plummeting instances of
genocide, and
a drop in human rights abuses.
41. Drinking
and Dying Protestants Protest
42. Screen Violence—How Much is Too Much?
43. Efforts for NY homeless were hopeless
Pain in Spain
44. Soccer kicks off with
violence
45. After Wilma's punch, the pinch
After enduring several harrowing hours
hunkered down in their homes in the
midst of
100-plus-mile-per-hour winds, Floridians are
finding that the aftermath
of hurricane Wilma
may be more difficult than the storm itself.
46. Let every nation know, whether it wishes
us well or ill, that we shall pay any
price,
bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any
friend, oppose any foe to
assure the survival
and the success of liberty. Inaugural Address
47. that government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not
perish from
the burg Address
48.
our entreaties have
been disregarded. We have begged and they have
mocked when
our calamity came. We beg no
longer. We entreat no more. We petition no more.
We
defy them.-- William Jennings Bryan
49.
’s a mountain of sickness, whether
it’s a
mountain of debt; whether it’s a mountain of
loneliness; whether it’s a
mountain of despair
-whatever this mountain I Have is a Seed
on
my Side
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50.
into a
beautiful symphony of brotherhood.I Have a Dream
51.
winter in our hearts. The people of
Oklahoma City are mourning still.
52. chamber
is celebrating an important milestone this week:
your 70th
anniversary. I remember the day you
started.
53.
Christmas, and God bless all
of you, all of you on the good earth.
Astronaut
54. Torquemada's time, there was at least a
system that could, to some extent,
make
righteousness and peace kiss each other. Now, they
do not even bow..K.
Chesterton, Orthodoxy
55.
56.
57. Winston Churchill
58. Victor Hugo
59.
60. the senior
citizens , show sb. the door, the have-nots
61. comfort woman, the oldest
professionbusiness in the world, social disease,
62. unwelcome visit, police action ,
preemptive action (先发制人的行动)
63. welfare mother
64. When we came back we found him in an
armchair, peacefully gone to sleep—but
for
ever.
65. He has a tendency to stretch the
truth.
66. We had dinner at 10 dollars a
head.
67. Love goes towards love, as
schoolboys from their books;
but love from
love, towards school with heavy books.
(Shakespeare)
68. All the world’s a stage, and
all the men and women merely players.
(Shakespeare)