Stilistika_Kukharenko

there being nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there has been no Government. (D.)

6.From her earliest infancy Gertrude was brought up by her aunt. Her aunt had carefully instructed her to Christian principles. She had also taught her Mohammedanism, to make sure. (L.)

7.She’s a charming middle aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she has washed her hair since Coolidge’s second term, I’ll eat my spare tire, rim and all. (R.Ch.)

8.With all the expressiveness of a stone Welsh stared at him another twenty seconds apparently hoping to see him gag. (R.Ch.)

9.“Well. It’s shaping up into a lovely evening, isn’t it?” “Great,” he said.

“And if I may say so, you’re doing everything to make it hard er, you little sweet.” (D.P.)

10.Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large business, but he is a very respectable man. He is allowed, by the greater at torneys to be a most respectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice which is a mark of respectability, he never takes any pleasure, which is another mark of respectability, he is re served and serious which is another mark of respectability. His digestion is impaired which is highly respectable. (D.)

11.Several months ago a magazine named Playboy which concentrates editorially on girls, books, girls, art, girls, music, fashion, girls and girls, published an article about old time science fiction. (M.St.)

12.Apart from splits based on politics, racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds and specific personality differences, we’re just one cohesive team. (D.U.)

13.A local busybody, unable to contain her curiosity any longer, asked an expectant mother point blank whether she was going to have a baby. “Oh, goodness, no,” the young woman said pleas antly. “I’m just carrying this for a friend.” (P.G.W.)

14.Sonny Grosso was a worrier who looked for and frequently man aged to find, the dark side of most situations. (P.M.)

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15.Bookcases covering one wall boasted a half shelf of literature. (T.C.)

16.I had been admitted as a partner in the firm of Andrews and Bishop, and throughout 1927 and 1928 I enriched myself and the firm at the rate of perhaps forty dollars a month. (Jn.B.)

17.Last time it was a nice, simple, European style war. (I.Sh.)

18.He could walk and run, was full of exact knowledge about God, and entertained no doubt concerning the special partiality of a minor deity called Jesus towards himself. (A.B.)

19.But every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. As the great champion of freedom and national independence he conquers and annexes half the world and calls it Colonization. (B.Sh.)

20.All this blood and fire business tonight was probably part of the graft to get the Socialists chucked out and leave honest business men safe to make their fortunes out of murder. (L.Ch.)

21.He spent two years in prison, making a number of valuable con tacts among other upstanding embezzlers, frauds and confidence men whilst inside. (An.C.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

ØWhat is irony, what lexical meaning is employed in its formation?

ØWhat types of irony do you know? What is the length of the context needed for the realization of each of them?

ØWhat are the most frequently observed mechanisms of irony formation? Can you explain the role of the repetition in creating irony?

ØCan you name English or American writers known for their ingenuity and versatility in the use of irony?

ØFind cases of irony in books you read both for work and pleasure.

Antonomasia is a lexical SD in which a proper name is used in stead of a common noun or vice versa, i.e. a SD, in which the nomi

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nal meaning of a proper name is suppressed by its logical meaning or the logical meaning acquires the new—nominal—component. Logical meaning, as you know, serves to denote concepts and thus to classify individual objects into groups (classes). Nominal meaning has no classifying power for it applies to one single individual object with the aim not of classifying it as just another of a number of objects consti tuting a definite group, but, on the contrary, with the aim of singling it out of the group of similar objects, of individualizing one particular object. Indeed, the word “Mary” does not indicate whether the de noted object refers to the class of women, girls, boats, cats, etc., for it singles out without denotational classification. But in Th. Dreiser we read: “He took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something....” The attribute “each”, used with the name, turns it into a common noun denoting any female. Here we deal with a case of antonomasia of the first type.

Another type of antonomasia we meet when a common noun serves as an individualizing name, as in D. Cusack: “There are three doctors in an illness like yours. I don’t mean only myself, my partner and the radiologist who does your X rays, the three I’m referring to are Dr. Rest, Dr. Diet and Dr. Fresh Air.”

Still another type of antonomasia is presented by the so called “speaking names”—names whose origin from common nouns is still clearly perceived. So, in such popular English surnames as Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown the etymology can be restored but no speaker of Eng lish today has it in his mind that the first one used to mean occupa tion and the second one—color. While such names from Sheridan’s School for Scandal as Lady Teazle or Mr. Surface immediately raise associations with certain human qualities due to the denotational meaning of the words “to tease” and “surface”. The double role of the speaking names, both to name and to qualify, is sometimes pre served in translation. Cf. the list of names from another of Sheri dan’s plays, The Rivals: Miss Languish—Мисс Томней; Mr. Back bite—М р Клевентаун; Mr. Credulous—М р Доверч; Mr. Snake— М р Гад, etc. Or from F. Cooper: Lord Chatterino—Лорд Балаболо; John Jaw—Джон Брех; Island Leap High—Остров Высоко прыгия.

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Antonomasia is created mainly by nouns, more seldom by attrib utive combinations (as in “Dr. Fresh Air”) or phrases (as in “Mr. What’s his name”). Common nouns used in the second type of an tonomasia are in most cases abstract, though there are instances of concrete ones being used too.

Exercise V. Analyse the following cases of antonomasia. State the type of meaning employed and implied; indicate what additional information is created by the use of antonomasia; pay attention to the morphological and semantic characteristics of common nouns used as proper names:

1.“You cheat, you no good cheat—you tricked our son. Took our son with a scheming trick, Miss Tomboy, Miss Sarcastic, Miss Sneerface.” (Ph. R.)

2.A stout middle aged man, with enormous owl eyed spectacles, was sitting on the edge of a great table. I turned to him.

“Don’t ask me,” said Mr. Owl Eyes washing his hands of the whole matter. (Sc.F.)

3.To attend major sports event most parents have arrived. A Colo nel Sidebotham was standing next to Prendergast, firmly holding the tape with “FINISH”. “Capital,” said Mr. Prendergast, and dropping his end of the tape, he sauntered to the Colonel. “I can see you are a fine judge of the race, sir. So was I once. So’s Grimes. A capital fellow, Grimes; a bounder, you know, but a capital fellow. Bounders can be capital fellows; don’t you agree. Colonel Slidebottom... I wish you’d stop pulling at my arm, Pen nyfeather. Colonel Shybottom and I are just having a most inter esting conversation.” (E.W.)

4.I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I know);

Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west;

But after they have worked for me

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I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,

For I am busy then,

As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,

For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views.

I know a person small

She keeps ten million serving men,

Who get no rest at all.

She sends ‘em abroad on her own affairs,

From the second she opens her eyes

One million Hows, two million Wheres,

And seven million Whys. (R. K.)

5.“Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon.” “I don’t really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure, that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster without being a myth.” (O.W.)

6.Our secretary is Esther D’Eath. Her name is pronounced by vul gar relatives as Dearth, some of us pronounce it Deeth. (S.Ch.)

7.When Omar P. Quill died, his solicitors referred to him always as O.P.Q. Each reference to O.P.Q. made Roger think of his grand father as the middle of the alphabet. (G.M.)

8.“Your fur and his Caddy are a perfect match. I respect history: don’t you know that Detroit was founded by Sir Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, French fur trader.” (J.O’H.)

9.Now let me introduce you—that’s Mr. What’s his name, you re member him, don’t you? And over there in the comer, that’s the Major, and there’s Mr. What d’you call him, and that’s an American. (E.W.)

10.Cats and canaries had added to the already stale house an entire ly new dimension of defeat. As I stepped down, an evil looking Tom slid by us into the house. (W.G1.)

11.Kate kept him because she knew he would do anything in the world if he were paid to do it or was afraid not to do it. She had

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no illusions about him. In her business Joes were necessary. (J.St.)

12.In the moon landing year what choice is there for Mr. and Mrs. Average the programme against poverty or the ambitious NASA project? (M.St.)

13.The next speaker was a tall gloomy man. Sir Something Some body. (P.)

14.We sat down at a table with two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble. (Sc.F.)

15.She’s been in a bedroom with one of the young Italians, Count Something. (I.Sh.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

ØWhat is antonomasia? What meanings interact in its formation?

ØWhat types of antonomasia do you know? Give examples of each.

ØDo you remember any speaking names from the books you have read?

ØGive examples of personages’ names used as qualifying common nouns.

Epithet is probably as well known to you as metaphor, because it is widely mentioned by the critics, scholars, teachers, and students dis cussing a literary work. Epithet expresses characteristics of an object, both existing and imaginary. Its basic feature is its emotiveness and subjectivity: the characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is al ways chosen by the speaker himself. Our speech ontologically being always emotionally coloured, it is possible to say that in epithet it is the emotive meaning of the word that is foregrounded to suppress the denotational meaning of the latter.

Epithet has remained over the centuries the most widely used SD, which is understandable—it offers ample opportunities of qualifying

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every object from the author’s partial and subjective viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose, publicist style, and everyday speech. Through long and repeated use epithets become fixed. Many fixed epi thets are closely connected with folklore and can be traced back to folk ballads (e.g. “true love”, “merry Christmas”, etc.). A number of them have originated in euphemistic writing of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (e.g. “a valiant youth”, “a trembling maiden”, “dead silence”, etc.). Those which were first found in Homer’s poetry and have been repeated since, are known as Homeric epithets (e.g. “swift footed Achilles”, “rosy fingered dawn”).

The structure and semantics of epithets are extremely variable which is explained by their long and wide use. Semantically, there should be differentiated two main groups, the biggest of them being affective (or emotive proper). These epithets serve to convey the emo tional evaluation of the object by the speaker. Most of the qualifying words found in the dictionary can be and are used as affective epithets (e.g. “gorgeous”, “nasty”, “magnificent”, “atrocious”, etc.).

The second group—figurative, or transferred, epithets—is formed of metaphors, metonymies and similes (which will be discussed later) expressed by adjectives. E.g. “the smiling sun”, “the frowning cloud”, “the sleepless pillow”, “the tobacco stained smiie”, “a ghost like face”, “a dreamlike experience”. Like metaphor, metonymy and sim ile, corresponding epithets are also based on similarity of characteris tics of two objects in the first case, on nearness of the qualified objects in the second one, and on their comparison in the third.

In the overwhelming majority of examples epithet is expressed by adjectives or qualitative adverbs (e.g. “his triumphant look” = he looked triumphantly).* Nouns come next. They are used either as ex clamatory sentences (“You, ostrich!”) or as postpositive attributes (“Alonzo the Clown”, “Richard of the Lion Heart”).

* Don’t fall into the trap of regarding all attributes as epithets. Such attributes as “a round table”,’’a tall man” reflect objective features of entities and not their subjective qualification, which is the leading characteristic of an epithet. Those ad jectives (adverbs, nouns), which offer objective representation of the features and qualities of an object, form the group of logical attributes.

Epithets are used singly, in pairs, in chains, in two step structures, and in inverted constructions, also as phrase attributes. All previously given examples demonstrated single epithets. Pairs are represented by two epithets joined by a conjunction or asyndetically as in “wonderful and incomparable beauty” (O.W.) or “a tired old town” (H.L.). Chains (also called strings) of epithets present a group of homogene ous attributes varying in number from three up to sometimes twenty and even more. E.g. “You’re a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creature.” (D.) From the last example it is evident that if a logical attribute (which in our case is the word “old”) is included into the chain of epithets, it begins to shine with their reflected light, i.e. the subjectivity of epithets irradiates onto the logical attribute and adapts it for expressive purposes, along with epithets proper.

Two step epithets are so called because the process of qualifying seemingly passes two stages: the qualification of the object and the qualification of the qualification itself, as in “an unnaturally mild day” (Hut.), or “a pompously majestic female”. (D.) As you see from the examples, two step epithets have a fixed structure of Adv + Adj model. Phrase epithets always produce an original impression. Cf.: “the sunshine in the breakfast room smell” (J.B.), or “a move if you dare expression”. (Gr.) Their originality proceeds from the fact of the rare repetition of the once coined phrase epithet which, in its turn, is explained by the fact that into a phrase epithet is turned a se mantically self sufficient word combination or even a whole sentence, which loses some of its independence and self sufficiency, becoming a member of another sentence, and strives to return to normality. The forcible manner of this syntactical transformation is the main obsta cle for repeated use of such phrasally structured epithets.

A different linguistic mechanism is responsible for the emergence of one more structural type of epithets, namely, inverted epithets. They are based on the contradiction between the logical and the syntacti cal: logically defining becomes syntactically defined and vice versa. E.g. instead of “this devilish woman”, where “devilish” is both logi cally and syntactically defining, and “woman” also both logically and syntactically defined, W. Thackeray says “this devil of a woman”. Here “of a woman” is syntactically an attribute, i.e. the defining, and

“devil”—the defined, while the logical relations between the two re main the same as in the previous example—“a woman” is defined by “the devil”.

All inverted epithets are easily transformed into epithets of a more habitual structure where there is no logico syntactical contradiction. Cf.: “the giant of a man” (a gigantic man); “the prude of a woman” (a prudish woman), etc. When meeting an inverted epithet do not mix it up with an ordinary of phrase. Here the article with the second noun will help you in doubtful cases: “the toy of the girl” (the toy belonging to the girl); “the toy of a girl” (a small, toylike girl), or “the kitten of the woman” (the cat belonging to the woman); “the kitten of a wom an” (a kittenlike woman).

Exercise VI. Discuss the structure and semantics of epithets in the following examples. Define the type and function of epithets:

1.He has that unmistakable tall lanky “rangy” loose jointed grace ful closecropped formidably clean American look. (I.M.)

2.Across the ditch Doll was having an entirely different reaction. With all his heart and soul, furiously, jealously, vindictively, he was hoping Queen would not win. (J.)

3.During the past few weeks she had become most sharply conscious of the smiling interest of Hauptwanger. His straight lithe body his quick, aggressive manner his assertive, seeking eyes. (Dr.)

4.He’s a proud, haughty, consequential, turned nosed peacock. (D.)

5.The Fascisti, or extreme Nationalists, which means black shirted, knife carrying, club swinging, quick stepping, nineteen year old pot shot patriots, have worn out their welcome in Italy. (H.)

6.Where the devil was heaven? Was it up? Down? There was no up or down in a finite but expanding universe in which even the vast, burning, dazzling, majestic sun was in a state of progressive de cay that would eventually destroy the earth too. (Js.H.)

7.She has taken to wearing heavy blue bulky shapeless quilted Peo ple’s Volunteers trousers rather than the tight tremendous how the West was won trousers she formerly wore. (D.B.)

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8.Harrison—a fine, muscular, sun bronzed, gentle eyed, patri cian nosed, steak fed, Gilman Schooled, soft spoken, well tai lored aristocrat was an out and out leaflet writing revolutionary at the time. (Jn.B.)

9.In the cold, gray, street washing, milk delivering, shutters co ming off the shops early morning, the midnight train from Par is arrived in Strasbourg. (H.)

10.Her painful shoes slipped off. (U.)

11.She was a faded white rabbit of a woman. (A.C.)

12.And she still has that look, that don’t you touch me look, that women who were beautiful carry with them to the grave. (J.B.)

13.Ten thirty is a dark hour in a town where respectable doors are locked at nine. (T.C.)

14.He loved the afterswim salt and sunshine smell of her hair. (Jn.B.)

15.I was to secretly record, with the help of a powerful long range movie camera lens, the walking along the Battery in the sun shine meeting between Ken and Jerry. (D.U.)

16.“Thief!” Pilon shouted. “Dirty pig of an untrue friend!” (J.St.)

17.She spent hausfrau afternoons hopping about in the sweatbox of her midget kitchen. (T.C.)

18.He acknowledged an early afternoon customer with a be with— you in a minute nod. (D.U.)

19.He thoroughly disliked this never far from tragic look of a ham Shakespearian actor. (H.)

20.“What a picture!” cried the ladies. “Oh! The lambs! Oh, the sweets! Oh, the ducks! Oh, the pets!” (K.M.)

21.A branch, cracking under his weight sent through the tree a sad cruel thunder. (T.C.)

22.There was none of the Old fashioned Five Four Three Two One Zero business, so tough on the human nervous system. (A.Cl.)

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23.His shrivelled head bobbed like a dried pod on his frail stick of a body. (J.G.)

24.The children were very brown and filthily dirty. (W.V.)

25.Liza Hamilton was a very different kettle of Irish. Her head was small and round and it held small and round convictions. (J.St.)

26.He sat with Daisy in his arms for a long silent time. (Sc.F.)

27.From the Splendide Hotel guests and servants were pouring in chattering bright streams. (R.Ch.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

ØWhat lexical meaning is instrumental in the formation of epithets?

ØWhat semantic types of epithets do you know?

ØWhat structural types of epithets do you know?

ØWhat parts of speech are predominantly used as epithets and why?

ØWhen reading a book pay attention to the type and distribution of epithets there and to what defines the quantity and the quality of epithets in a literary work.

Hyperbole—a stylistic device in which emphasis is achieved through deliberate exaggeration,—like epithet, relies on the fore grounding of the emotive meaning. The feelings and emotions of the speaker are so ruffled that he resorts in his speech to intensifying the quantitative or the qualitative aspect of the mentioned object. E.g.: In his famous poem “To His Coy Mistress” Andrew Marvell writes about love: “My vegetable love should grow faster than empires.”.

Hyperbole is one of the most common expressive means of our everyday speech. When we describe our admiration or anger and say “I would gladly see this film a hundred times”, or “I have told it to you a thousand times”—we use trite language hvperboles which, through long and repeated use, have lost their originality and re mained signals of the speaker’s roused emotions.

Hyperbole may be the final effect of another SD—metaphor, smile, irony, as we have in the cases “He has the tread of a rhinocer os” or “The man was like the Rock of Gibraltar”.

Hyperbole can be expressed by all notional parts of speech. There are words though, which are used in this SD more often than others. They are such pronouns as “all”, “every”, “everybody” and the like. Cf.: “Calpurnia was all angles and bones” (H.L.); also numerical nouns (“a million”, “a thousand”), as was shown above; and adverbs of time (“ever”, “never”).

The outstanding Russian philologist A. Peshkovsky once stressed the importance of both communicants clearly perceiving that the ex aggeration, used by one of them is intended as such and serves not to denote actual quality or quantity but signals the emotional back ground of the utterance. If this reciprocal understanding of the inten tional nature of the overstatement is absent, hyperbole turns into a mere lie, he said.

Hyperbole is aimed at exaggerating quantity or quality. When it is directed the opposite way, when the size, shape, dimensions, charac teristic features of the object are not overrated, but intentionally un derrated, we deal with understatement. The mechanism of its creation and functioning is identical with that of hyperbole, and it does not signify the actual state of affairs in reality, but presents the latter through the emotionally coloured perception and rendering of the speaker. It is not the actual diminishing or growing of the object that is conveyed by a hyperbole or understatement. It is a transient subjec tive impression that finds its realization in these SDs. They differ only in the direction of the flow of roused emotions. English is well known for its preference for understatement in everyday speech—“I am rath er annoyed” instead of “I’m infuriated”, “The wind is rather strong” instead of “There’s a gale blowing outside” are typical of British po lite speech, but are less characteristic of American English.

Some hyperboles and understatements (both used individually and as the final effect of some other SD) have become fixed, as we have in “Snow White”, or “Liliput”, or “Gargantua”.*

* Cf. with Russian — мальчик с пальчик, дюймовочка, мужичок с ноготок.

Trite hyperboles and understatements, reflecting their use in eve ryday speech, in creative writing are observed mainly in dialogue, while the author’s speech provides us with examples of original SDs, often rather extended or demanding a considerable fragment of the text to be really understood.

Exercise VII. In the following examples concentrate on cases of hyperbole and understatement. Pay attention to their originality or staleness, to other SDs promoting their effect, to exact words containing the foregrounded emotive meaning:

1.I was scared to death when he entered the room. (S.)

2.The girls were dressed to kill. (J.Br.)

3.Newspapers are the organs of individual men who have jockeyed themselves to be party leaders, in countries where a new party is born every hour over a glass of beer in the nearest cafe. (J.R.)

4.I was violently sympathetic, as usual. (Jn.B.)

5.Four loudspeakers attached to the flagpole emitted a shattering roar of what Benjamin could hardly call music, as if it were played by a collection of brass bands, a few hundred fire engines, a thousand blacksmiths’ hammers and the amplified reproduc tion of a force twelve wind. (A. S.)

6.The car which picked me up on that particular guilty evening was a Cadillac limousine about seventy three blocks long. (J.B.)

7.Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. (Sc.F.)

8.He didn’t appear like the same man; then he was all milk and honey—now he was all starch and vinegar. (D.)

9.She was a giant of a woman. Her bulging figure was encased in a green crepe dress and her feet overflowed in red shoes. She car ried a mammoth red pocketbook that bulged throughout as if it were stuffed with rocks. (Fl. O’C.)

10.She was very much upset by the catastrophe that had befallen the Bishops, but it was exciting, and she was tickled to death to have someone fresh to whom she could tell all about it. (S.M.)

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11.Babbitt’s preparations for leaving the office to its feeble self dur ing the hour and a half of his lunch period were somewhat less elaborate than the plans for a general European War. (S.M.)

12.The little woman, for she was of pocket size, crossed her hands solemnly on her middle. (G.)

13.We danced on the handkerchief big space between the speak easy tables. (R.W.)

14.She wore a pink hat, the size of a button. (J.R.)

15.She was a sparrow of a woman. (Ph. L.)

16.And if either of us should lean toward the other, even a fraction of an inch, the balance would be upset. (O.W.)

17.He smiled back, breathing a memory of gin at me. (W.G.)

18.About a very small man in the Navy: this new sailor stood five feet nothing in sea boots. (Th.P.)

19.She busied herself in her midget kitchen. (T.C.)

20.The rain had thickened, fish could have swum through the air. (T.C.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

ØWhat meaning is foregrounded in a hyperbole?

ØWhat types of hyperbole can you name?

ØWhat makes a hyperbole trite and where are trite hyperboles predominantly used?

ØWhat is understatement? In what way does it differ from hyperbole?

ØRecollect cases of vivid original hyperboles or understatements from your English reading.

Oxymoron is a stylistic device the syntactic and semantic structures of which come to clashes. In Shakespearian definitions of love, much

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quoted from his Romeo and Juliet, perfectly correct syntactically, at tributive combinations present a strong semantic discrepancy between their members. Cf.: “O brawling love! О loving hate! О heavy light ness! Serious vanity! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!”

As is clearly seen from this string of oxymorons, each one of them is a combination of two semantically contradictory notions, that help to emphasize contradictory qualities simultaneously existing in the described phenomenon as a dialectical unity. As a rule, one of the two members of oxymoron illuminates the feature which is universally ob served and acknowledged while the other one offers a purely subjec tive, individual perception of the object. Thus in an oxymoron we also deal with the foregrounding of emotive meaning, only of a different type than the one observed in previously discussed SDs. The most widely known structure of oxymoron is attributive, so it is easy to be lieve that the subjective part of the oxymoron is embodied in the at tribute epithet, especially because the latter also proceeds from the foregrounding of the emotive meaning. But there are also others, in which verbs are employed. Such verbal structures as “to shout mute ly” (I.Sh.) or “to cry silently” (M.W.) seem to strengthen the idea, which leads to the conclusion that oxymoron is a specific type of epi thet. But the peculiarity of an oxymoron lies in the fact that the speaker’s (writer’s) subjective view can be expressed through either of the members of the word combination.

Originality and specificity of oxymoron becomes especially evi dent in non attributive structures which also, not infrequently, are used to express semantic contradiction, as in “the street damaged by improvements” (O.H.) or “silence was louder than thunder” (U.).

Oxymorons rarely become trite, for their components, linked for cibly, repulse each other and oppose repeated use. There are few col loquial oxymorons, all of them showing a high degree of the speaker’s emotional involvement in the situation, as in “damn nice”, “awfully pretty”.

Exercise VIII. In the following sentences pay attention to the structure and semantics of oxymorons. Also indicate which of their

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members conveys the individually viewed feature of the object and which one reflects its generally accepted characteristic:

1.He caught a ride home to the crowded loneliness of the barracks. (J.)

2.Sprinting towards the elevator he felt amazed at his own coward ly courage. (G.M.)

3.They were a bloody miserable lot—the miserablest lot of men I ever saw. But they were good to me. Bloody good. (J.St.)

4.He behaved pretty lousily to Jan. (D.C.)

5.Well might he perceive the hanging of her hair in fairest quantity in locks, some curled and some as if it were forgotten, with such a careless care and an art so hiding art that it seemed she would lay them for a pattern. (Ph. S.)

6.There were some bookcases of superbly unreadable books. (E.W.)

7.Absorbed as we were in the pleasures of travel—and I in my mod est pride at being the only examinee to cause a commotion—we were over the old Bridge. (W.G.)

8.“Heaven must be the hell of a place. Nothing but repentant sin ners up there, isn’t it?” (Sh.D.)

9.Harriet turned back across the dim garden. The lightless light looked down from the night sky. (I.M.)

10.Sara was a menace and a tonic, my best enemy; Rozzie was a dis ease, my worst friend. (J.Car.)

11.It was an open secret that Ray had been ripping his father in law off. (D.U.)

12.A neon sign reads “Welcome to Reno—the biggest little town in the world.” (A.M.)

13.Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield are Good Bad Boys of Ameri can literature. (V.)

14.Haven’t we here the young middle aged woman who cannot quite compete with the paid models in the fashion magazine but who yet catches our eye? (Jn.H.)

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15.Their bitter sweet union did not last long. (A.C.)

16.He was sure the whites could detect his adoring hatred of them. (Wr.)

17.You have got two beautiful bad examples for parents. (Sc.F.)

18.He opened up a wooden garage. The doors creaked. The garage was full of nothing. (R.Ch.)

19.She was a damned nice woman, too. (H.)

20.A very likeable young man with a pleasantly ugly face. (A.C.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

ØWhat is an oxymoron and what meanings are foregrounded in its formation?

ØWhy are there comparatively few trite oxymorons and where are they mainly used?

ØGive some examples of trite oxymorons.

After you had learnt individual lexical stylistic devices and the lin guistic mechanism which operates in each of them, we may pass on to the general stylistic analysis on the lexical level. Your main task is to indicate how and through what lexical means additional logical, emo tive, expressive information is created. In many cases you will see a number of lexical units used in convergence to still more enhance the expressiveness and emphasis of the utterance.

Exercise IX. Pay attention to the stylistic function of various lexical expressive means used individually and in convergence:

1.Constantinople is noisy, hot, hilly, dirty and beautiful. It is packed with uniforms and rumors. (H.)

2.At Archie Schwert’s party the fifteenth Marquess of Vanburgh, Earl Vanburgh de Brendon, Baron Brendon, Lord of the Five Isles and Hereditary Grand Falconer to the Kingdom of Con

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naught, said to the eighth Earl of Balcairn, Viscount Erdinge, Baron Cairn of Balcairn, Red Knight of Lancaster, Count of the Holy Roman Empire and Chenonceaux Herald to the Duchy of Aquitaine, “Hullo,” he said. “Isn’t it a repulsive party? What are you going to say about it?” for they were both of them as it hap pened, gossip writers for the daily papers. (E.W.)

3.Across the street a bingo parlour was going full blast; the voice of the hot dog merchant split the dusk like an axe. The big blue blared down the street. (R.Ch.)

4.Lester was all alone. He listened to his steps, as if they weren’t his at all but somebody else’s. How long can a guy stand this without going nuts? Wattinger has been a good boy but it got him and he was blown to smithereens; they say they’d seen his arm sailing through the air; higher and higher, an arm alone rising to meet God. He wondered whether, up there, they’d accept an arm in place of the whole man. His soul couldn’t possibly have been in the arm; it was in your heart or in your guts or in your brain but not in your arm. (St.H.)

5.For me the work of Gertrude Stein consists in a rebuilding, an entire new recasting of life, in the city of words. Here is one artist who has been able to accept ridicule, to go live among the little housekeeping words, the swaggering bullying street corner words, the honest working, money saving words, and all the oth er forgotten and neglected citizens of the sacred and half forgot ten city. (Sh.A.)

6.Only a couple of the remaining fighters began to attack the bombers. On they all came, slowly getting larger. The tiny mos quitoes dipped and swirled and dived in a mad, whirling dance around the heavier, stolid horseflies, who nevertheless kept se renely and sedately on. (J.)

7.“I guess,” said Mr. Hiram Fish sotto voce to himself and the world at large, “that this has been a great little old week.” (Ch.)

8.The good ships Law and Equity, those teak built, copper bot tomed iron fastened, brazen faced, and not by any means fast sailing Clippers, are laid up in ordinary. (D.)

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9.An enormous grand piano grinned savagely at the curtains as if it would grab them, given the chance. (W.G1.)

10.Duffy was face to face with the margin of mistery where all our calculations collapse, where the stream of time dwindles into the sands of eternity, where the formula fails in the test tube, where chaos and old night hold sway and we hear the laughter in the ether dream. (R.W.)

11.Mrs. Ape watched them benignly, then squaring her shoulders and looking (except that she had really no beard to speak of) eve ry inch a sailor strode resolutely forrad to the first class bar. (E.W.)

12.The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking

over harbor and city on silent haunches

and then moves on. (K.S.)

13.On that little pond the leaves floated in peace and praised Heav en with their hues, the sunlight haunting over them. (G.)

14.From the throats of the ragged black men, as they trotted up and down the landing stage, strange haunting notes. Words were caught up, tossed about, held in the throat. Word lovers, sound lovers—the blacks seemed to hold a tone in some warm place, under their red tongues perhaps. Their thick lips were walls un der which the tone hid. (Sh.A.)

15.It was a relief not to have to machete my way through a jungle of what are you talking aboutery before I could get at him. (J.A.)

16.Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice,

From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice

I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice

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Is also great

And would suffice. (R.Fr.)

17.Outside the narrow street fumed, the sidewalks swarmed with fat stomachs. (J.R.)

18.The owner, now at the wheel, was the essence of decent self sat isfaction; a baldish, largish, level eyed man, ragged of neck but sleek and round of face—face like the back of a spoon bowl. (S.L.)

19.His fingertips seemed to caress the wheel as he nursed it over the dark winding roads at a mere whispering sixty. (L.Ch.)

20.We plunged in and out of sun and shadow pools, and joy, a glad to be alive exhilaration, jolted through me like a jigger of nitro gen. (T.C.)

21.They were both wearing hats like nothing on earth, which bobbed and nodded as they spoke. (E.W.)

22.These jingling toys in his pocket were of eternal importance like baseball or Republican Party. (S.L.)

23.He might almost have been some other man dreaming recurrently that he was an electrical engineer. On the other side of the edge, waiting for him to peer into it late at night or whenever he was alone and the show of work had stopped, was illimitable unpopu lated darkness, a greenland night; and only his continuing heart beats kept him from disappearing into it. Moving along this edge, doing whatever the day demanded, or the night offered, grimly ob servant (for he was not without fortitude), he noticed much that has escaped him before. He found he was attending a comedy, a show that would have been very funny indeed if there had been life outside the theatre instead of darkness and dissolution. (P.)

24.Poetry deals with primal and conventional things—the hunger for bread, the love of woman, the love of children, the desire for immortal life. If men really had new sentiments, poetry could not deal with them. If, let us say, a man felt a bitter craving to eat brass fenders or mahogany tables, poetry could not express him.

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