CHIASMUS

[Dr. Goodword]

• chiasmus •

Pronunciation: kai-æz-mês • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: Reversing the order of the subject and predicate in the second of two otherwise parallel clauses, as did Mae West when she proclaimed, "It's not the men in my life that counts—it's the life in my men."

Notes: Today's word is a variant of a Greek word that English borrowed three ways: chiasmus (plural chiasmi pronounced [kai-az-mai]) is the usual word referring to the literary device we are discussing today. The adjective for chiasmus is chiastic, as a chiastic sentence. Chiasma and chiasm come from the same Greek word but refer to things having the shape "X", such as the optic chiasm(a), the point in the brain at which the nerves of the right and left eyes cross each other. The adjective for these words is either chiasmal or chiasmatic.

In Play: Some types of chiasmus are outdated: "Her hair shimmered with moonlight; electrifying were her eyes." Several others, however, not only survive today but thrive: "Hardy Belcher promised to eat all the hotdogs and all the hotdogs he did eat." The type used by Mae West, reversing the sense of the first clause in the second, also remains prevalent: "Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you". That's chiasmus.

Word History: Today's Good Word is the Latin modification of Greek chiasmos "crisscrossing, syntactic inversion". The Greek noun was made from the verb chiazein "to X out, to mark with or as an X", based on the name of the letter X in Greek: chi. No one seems to know where this word came from; it probably was simply the pronunciation of the letter (like the CH in German or Scots English) plus a random vowel sound. (Today we should thank Lee Blue for suggesting today's Good Word, so Lee Blue we certainly do thank.)

[Perry]

Obama uses this device very effectively. Sometimes I can get these off spontaneously, but if I tried to think one up know, I know that I would be scratching my head for a bit.

[Stargzer]

I ran across this example just the other day. In the book Agression in Dogs: Practical Management, Prevention, and Behaviour Modification by Brenda Aloff, there is an anecdote on page 79 about how Jynx, a little Fox Terrier, was patrolling on crumb duty in the kennel and ignored a low warning growl from Gent, a Great Pyrenees, as she approached his kennel. Gent growled and bared his teeth as his great bulk loomed over the tiny terrier from behind the door to his kennel.

Jynx paused for perhaps one second, got very still, then glanced up at Gent as if she had just noticed him, and showed him this face [the Offensive & Assertive face shown on the previous page] as she made a single, short, almost inaudible growling vocalization. ... Gent stopped dead, turned around, and lay down quietly in the back of his kennel, his back to Jynx, his face carefully averted. ... Just goes to show you that the old saying is true: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog."

[skinem]

I know this doesn't fit the definition, but I'm reminded of the Kennedy brothers--John and Robert---

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"

"Some people see things and ask why, I see things and ask why not."

[Perry]

I would say that your examples are "close enough for jazz".