辞格练习

辞格练习 1

Identify the figure of speech used in each of the following sentences. (choose from metonymy, synecdoche, antonomasia and allusion)

1. This newspaper – and probably the whole country – will wait its time and see how the new faces perform before judging them.

2. Mr. Adam, how can a nation of only two million souls stand up to an empire of ten million?

3. The moon was above, cold and beautiful, and the music reminded Soapy of those days when his life contained such things as mothers and roses and clean thoughts and collars.

4. It was not only writers, you know, it was a thoroughly representative gathering – science, politics, business, art, the world.

5. Friendship never forgets.

6. He always keeps a good table, and one gets plenty to eat and drink in his house.

7. Who holds the purse rules the house.

8. All that sleepless night I replayed the moment those black gloves came up

to the car window.

9. When I stay in Rwanda, when I came across the hungry mouths, big or small, I felt sympathetic and helpless as well.

10. I have an opinion of you, sir, to which it is not so easy to give the mouth.

11. Then the surgeon cut me open and took out the appendix and stitched me up again.

12. Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscle, but he had to leave the city for a while because of some of scathing columns he wrote.

13. The accused woman knew that she would have to bite the bullet until the new evidence in the case could prove her innocence.

14. You have been used as a cat’s paw by that woman; she only wants you to help her get into local society.

15. It was reported that Italy was beaten by unknowns from North Korea.

16. But in spite of himself, he became deeply interested in this Polish girl with the intense gray eyes and delicate features, who was as keen on test tubes as himself.

17. But, as it is clear from the city’s guide – book, Chester still has many

survivals of it past, both in the form of picturesque traditions and equally picturesque bricks and stones.

18. He (fish) desperately takes the death.

19. The bright death quivered at the victim’s throat.

20. Most Alzheimer’s disease isn’t hereditary: the key risk factor is age, not family history.

21. Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,

From the cradle to the grave,

Those ungrateful drones who would,

Drain your sweat – nay, drink your blood?

22. Champagne used to be drunk only by the very rich, but now a lot of people occasionally drink it

23. If donkey brags at you, don’t brag at him.

24. A hedge between keeps friendship green.

25. Homer sometimes nods.

26. She has come to realize that life is not a bed of roses.

27. The invention of machinery had brought into the world a new era – the industrial Age. Money had become king.

28. The gentleman in me made me stand up to go away, but the journalist in me made me stand still.

29. Beauty and the Beast was what people used to call them when Helen and her husband went out walking together.

30. His waterloo was a woman.

31. It is unfair that historians always attribute the fall of kingdoms to Helen of Troy.

32. The crafty enemy was ready to launch a new attack while outwardly holding out the olive branch.

33. The criminal was bound in irons, but made good his escape.

34. Had he chosen painting instead of politics, he would have been a great master with the brush.

35. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the

motionless bundle and moving gently about it.

36. Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back.

37. He is an enemy worth your steel; there is no cowardice in him.

38. The rather arresting spectacle of little old Japan adrift amid beige concrete skyscrapers is the very symbol of the incessant struggle between the kimono and the miniskirt.

39. I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

40. With all the red tape I ran into a city hall, it took me three months to get my business license.

41. “Judas! Traitor!” I ejaculated, “you are a hypocrite, too, are you? A deliberate deceiver.”

42. In the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together that she came to visit.

“Einstein is my admiration,” the little girl said.

43. There was no harm in Sam, but he was always merry and liked a bit of skirt.

44. This man is a very able lawyer, but the bench has not yet admitted him into

practice.

45. Nowadays more and more people have a liking for cotton.

46. The camp, the pulpit and the law,

For rich men’s sons are free.

1. The indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time.

2. His supervisor was probably already pacing up and down with a dismissal speech rehearsed.

3. Tom closed the car window and sat back in his seat, in hostile silence. His uncle cleared his throat and said: “Well, I hope we get on reasonable well.”

4. An expensive failure can be made into an asset if you’ve learnt from it, but Monsanto still has some learning to do.

5. There was going to be a contest in the arena that night and the whole town was looking forward to the bloody fights of the gladiators.

6. I was surprised to find him living in such drab and cheerless surrounding.

7. The clerk made a paralytic attempt to stand at attention.

8. The plowman homeward plods his weary way.

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

9. He tossed himself about on a sleepless bed in pain all night long.

10. The anguished dignity she brought to that part made it the best performance of her career.

11. John Henderson was driving home late last night from an exhausting business trip.

12. I doffed my hat, stood a respectful distance from the desk, looked as unbookish as possible.

13. At the end of the corridor we entered an automatic lift; the girl maintained a silent hostility and avoided looking at me.

14. He made a dignified entrance into the room.

15. These twin discoveries were a fitting reward for more than 800 lonely hours of patient patrolling of the skies over six years.

辞格练习2

I. Identify the figure(s) of speech used in each of the following sentences.

（choose from all the figures that we have covered so far）

1. He thinks he’s a Don Juan, but none of the girls like him.

2. On the fourteenth of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. (Engels)

3. The glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

4. A hundred bayonets were marching down the street.

5. I spoke to them in hesitant French.

6. She borrowed his wheel for a spin out to town.

7. Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him. (Benjamin Franklin)

8. I expect a treaty, a full-fledged treaty on medium-range missile.

9. The scent of the rose rang like a bell through the garden.

10. Scepter and Crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked Scythe and Spade. (James Shirley)

11. Constant dropping wears the stone. (proverb)

12. They had to bear the pitiless wind at night.

13. His voice sounded like a thunder in the hall.

14. The door banged after her.

15. He ate another bowl.

16. The patient lay all night on his sleepless pillow.

17. Religion is thus treated like lear.

18. His witty remarks kept the table highly amused.

19. We received another smiling year.

20. The thirsty soil drank in the rain.

II. Put in the missing words according to the given hints.

1. When industry (c ) in at the window, poverty (g )out of the door. (personification)

2. We are creating a nation once again vibrant, robust and alive. But there are many (m )yet to climb. (Ronald Reagan) (metaphor) 3. You can not change his mind any (m )you can change the orbit of the moon. (simile)

4. That fur coat would be beyond his miserable (p ). (metonymy) 5. There are hundreds of (s ) in the harbor. (synecdoche)

6. He was such an awful teacher that whenever he recognized a spark of genius you could be sure he’d (w ) it. (metaphor)

7. Sharp words may occasionally be spoken by unguarded or ignorant (t ). (Edward John Phelps). (synecdoche)

8. When guns (s ) it is too late to argue. (personification) 9. They prolonged the clasp for the photographer, exchanging (s )words. (transferred epithet)

10. “I was brought up rich.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You were born with a (F ) in your mouth.” (parody)