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Figures of speech: Rearrangement

Techniques > Use of language > Figures of speech  > Figures of speech: Rearrangement

There is a family of figures of speech where a key element is rearrangement of words in some way. Here they are:

• Adjunction: Putting the verb at the beginning.
• Anastrophe: Changing normal word order.
• Antimetabole: repeating clause, reversing word order.
• Chiasmus: Two phrases, with reversal in second.
• Diallage: Multiple arguments to establish a single point.
• Extraposition: Putting a subject at a later position than normal.
• Hypallage: Reversing syntactical relationship.
• Hyperbaton: Separating words that belong together.
• Hysteron proteron: Reversing temporal sequence to put key things first.
• Oxymoron: Adjacent words that seem to contradict one another.
• Spoonerism: Interchange of initial letters of two words.
• Synchysis: Confused arrangement of words.

See also

Confusion principle

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