Zuegma: the hip literary device that is sweeping the nation
more fun to use than alliteration, less common than the unreliable narrator, better named than onomatopoeia ... it is zuegma: everyone's favorite literary device. Zuegma (from the Greek for yoking) "in the most common present usage, it is applied to expressions in which a single word stands in the same grammatical relation to two or more other words but with an obvious shift in signifigance."
Below are the fifteen best expressions using the device I have come up with over the past couple days. Please comment with a ranking of your favorite examples (by number) or make a post in your own journal adding your favorite of my compositions to a list of zuegma you come up with. It is a fun way to pass the hour and a half you spent waiting outside your appartment on tuesday night waiting for your aunt to show up.
1. The guitarist nailed his solo and then some groupies.
2. The investigator will catch the terrorist, or anthrax.
3. I lost my mother to cancer and my watch at her funeral.
4. I tied my shoes, then my best time running the mile.
5. Billy, consumed with rage, will bomb the test and then the school.
6. The blogger does not like spoilers in movie reviews or campaigns for president.
7. I stink at ice skating and when I don't shower.
8. The morning hunt will see the flight of pheasants or of the rakish con-man Count Doodlebaum who'd promised the Lords there would be pheasants in the field.
9. Seamus missed the early bus and the Irish countryside almost every morning.
10. Tiffany can become one with the universe or a subscriber to US magazine - not both.
11. Jessica Simpson could not iron out the problems in her marriage or the creases in her pants.
12. I am so bored and fearless, I will shoot some heroin, or some hoboes, or some film at the local military base.
13. September saw a flood of New Orleans and of donations to the Red Cross.
14. During divorce procedings against Hortence today, Geraldo fought for the Chrysler and against the staph infection he picked up on the bus yesterday.
15. The apple orchard bore fruit and the whole family's expectations.
Below are the fifteen best expressions using the device I have come up with over the past couple days. Please comment with a ranking of your favorite examples (by number) or make a post in your own journal adding your favorite of my compositions to a list of zuegma you come up with. It is a fun way to pass the hour and a half you spent waiting outside your appartment on tuesday night waiting for your aunt to show up.
1. The guitarist nailed his solo and then some groupies.
2. The investigator will catch the terrorist, or anthrax.
3. I lost my mother to cancer and my watch at her funeral.
4. I tied my shoes, then my best time running the mile.
5. Billy, consumed with rage, will bomb the test and then the school.
6. The blogger does not like spoilers in movie reviews or campaigns for president.
7. I stink at ice skating and when I don't shower.
8. The morning hunt will see the flight of pheasants or of the rakish con-man Count Doodlebaum who'd promised the Lords there would be pheasants in the field.
9. Seamus missed the early bus and the Irish countryside almost every morning.
10. Tiffany can become one with the universe or a subscriber to US magazine - not both.
11. Jessica Simpson could not iron out the problems in her marriage or the creases in her pants.
12. I am so bored and fearless, I will shoot some heroin, or some hoboes, or some film at the local military base.
13. September saw a flood of New Orleans and of donations to the Red Cross.
14. During divorce procedings against Hortence today, Geraldo fought for the Chrysler and against the staph infection he picked up on the bus yesterday.
15. The apple orchard bore fruit and the whole family's expectations.