Figures of Speech

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”This famous opening from Charles Dickens is one of the most well-known anaphora examples in English literature. But does the word anaphora ring a bell? Let’s break it down. You have probably seen phrases or words repeated to emphasise an idea. This type of…

You’ve probably seen good versus evil in stories, rich versus poor in movies or light and shadow in photography.This powerful contrast is called juxtaposition. What is Juxtaposition? Juxtaposition is a literary and artistic technique where two contrasting ideas, characters, images or themes are placed close together to highlight their differences. Writers, filmmakers, artists and even…

Figurative language is everywhere in everyday communication. You may have heard phrases like “He was fuming” or “The wind whispered through the trees.” If taken literally, these statements might seem strange. However, they are examples of figurative language. Figurative language is a style of expression where words have non-literal meanings. Writers and speakers use it…

You might have heard someone say “this work is killing me.” Of course, they are not literally dying from their job. This kind of exaggeration is called hyperbole. Hyperbole is a figure of speech that exaggerates something to express a figurative meaning. Writers, speakers and even marketers use hyperbole to make their message more dramatic,…

It’s quite possible that you’ve come across a paradox without knowing what it is, and why it is used.Paradoxes may be confusing to English learners and may sound similar to Oxymorons, but they’re neither. In this article, we’ll go through what a paradox is while providing paradox examples to illustrate the meaning and its importance….

Perhaps you have not come across the term oxymoron, but you have likely heard phrases like ‘old news’, ‘awfully good’, and ‘same difference’. What was your first reaction when you heard these phrases made up of two contradictory words? Was it easy to figure out the meaning? Usually, such phrases take on a new meaning…

You might have seen a piece of media where an animal character moves, talks, and presents themselves in a very human way. For example, a show involving a children’s playground with a dog with a shirt and guitar, or a movie where a mouse mom is teaching her kids life lessons. As it turns out,…

You may have seen people use or write words that represent certain noises. Words like “crack”, “boom” and “crunch” are some examples of this. These words are called onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia is a way of describing sounds in a simple and effective way, without the need to use a lot of description that bloats a text….

You might have heard someone say something like “that spring pounced at me.” Springs can not literally pounce, so you might think this was a strange sentence; however that person was just using personification. Personification is a form of figurative language that involves assigning human qualities to non-human things. Any non-human subject can be personified,…

Figurative language in English is a very important part of understanding day to day communication. One of the most used instances of figurative language is Irony. Irony is when you say one thing but mean the opposite. It is similar to idioms, where what you intend to say is completely different to what you actually…