Balanced subject reversal.
Dick Chambers
decorating[2] ought to be fucked.
Is there a technical term (at a higher level than "joke") to describe this
balanced reversal of subject and object in symmetrical sentences?
Can you provide further examples of this type of construction?
[1] Br E = "have a knighthood awarded to him by the Queen".
[2] BrE = "the tedious job of painting the interior rooms of your house, a
task usually awarded to you by your wife". Is this the same word in AmE?
Richard Chambers Leeds UK.
Mike Lyle
> The guy who invented fucking ought to be decorated[1]. The guy who
> invented decorating[2] ought to be fucked.
>
> Is there a technical term (at a higher level than "joke") to
describe
> this balanced reversal of subject and object in symmetrical
sentences?
>
> Can you provide further examples of this type of construction?
I suppose it's a form of chiasmus, so called from its X-shape. "Being
born, thou didst weep when all about thee smil'd. So live thy life
that when thou dy'st, thou may'st smile when all around thee weep"
(Not the exact quotation, and I'm afraid I've even forgotten who it
was.)
--
Mike.
CDB
"Mike Lyle" <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3kspf5F...@individual.net...
Or, still on the subject of decorators, and retaining the punning that
makes the OP's example a joke, there's Mart Crowley's neat chiasmus
from _The Boys in the Band_: "Show me a happy homosexual and I'll show
you a gay corpse."
Don Phillipson
news:4_9Ge.7137$Aw4....@newsfe5-win.ntli.net...
> The guy who invented fucking ought to be decorated[1]. The guy who
invented
> decorating[2] ought to be fucked.
>
> Is there a technical term (at a higher level than "joke") to describe this
> balanced reversal of subject and object in symmetrical sentences?
Chiasmus, as M.Lyle posted: but the form became
well-known in the 20th century thanks to Stalin . . . .
Communist authors liked pamphlet titles like:
The Demise of Eclecticism and the Eclectics
of Demise: which lots of admirers thought cute.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Robert Bannister
That sort of depends on how you pronounce "corps" in this context.
--
Rob Bannister
CDB
"Robert Bannister" <rob...@it.net.au> wrote in message
news:3ktemnF...@individual.net...
As in "le corps d'em-bellissement"?
Joe Fineman
> Chiasmus, as M.Lyle posted: but the form became well-known in the
> 20th century thanks to Stalin . . . . Communist authors liked
> pamphlet titles like: The Demise of Eclecticism and the Eclectics
> of Demise: which lots of admirers thought cute.
Chiasmus, according to Fowler, is a reversal of word order in parallel
constructions; he gives as an example
I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
Arthur Koestler (I forget where) calls the Communist trick "semantic
spoonerism"; he attributes it to Marx, who replied to Proudhon's book
_The Philosophy of Poverty_ with one called _The Poverty of
Philosophy_.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net
||: Love: two vowels, two consonants, two fools. :||
Troy Steadman
> "Don Phillipson" <d.phil...@ttrryytteell.com> writes:
>
> > Chiasmus, as M.Lyle posted: but the form became well-known in the
> > 20th century thanks to Stalin . . . . Communist authors liked
> > pamphlet titles like: The Demise of Eclecticism and the Eclectics
> > of Demise: which lots of admirers thought cute.
>
> Chiasmus, according to Fowler, is a reversal of word order in parallel
> constructions; he gives as an example
>
> I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
Doesn't include then:
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight
in the dog".
R H Draney
>
>Joe Fineman wrote:
>>
>> Chiasmus, according to Fowler, is a reversal of word order in parallel
>> constructions; he gives as an example
>>
>> I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
>
>Doesn't include then:
>
>"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight
>in the dog".
One I thought was pretty clever when first I ran across it:
"I love my fucking job, and my job loves fucking me"
....r