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The best Chiasmus of all time: Definitions, Examples and Quotes
The best and most famous Spoonerisms of all time
Who wrote the best chiasmus in the English language? Who wrote the best
spoonerisms?
This page contains some of the greatest chiasmus and spoonerisms of all time. (I
absolutely refuse to use the awkward plural form "chiasmi.") Before I attempt
definitions, please allow me to offer a few examples of the chiasmus, by
exemplars like Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Mark Twain and William Shakespeare:
It's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, it's the size of the
fight in the dog.—Dwight D. Eisenhower
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me
than a frontal lobotomy.—Dorothy Parker
It's not the men in your life that count, it's the life in your men.—Mae West
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.—Oscar Wilde
Men always want to be a woman's first love; women want to be a man's last romance.—Oscar Wilde
If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do, you are misinformed.—Mark Twain
It's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that bother me, it's the parts I do understand.—Mark Twain
I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.—William Shakespeare
I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do;
I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.—Ronald
Reagan
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.—a popular proverb attributed
to Knute Rockne and Joseph P. Kennedy (JFK's father)
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.—John
F. Kennedy, following in his father's footsteps
Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country.—Ron Paul
I'd rather have questions that can't be answered, than answers that can't be
questioned.—Richard Feynman
To avoid being a hack writer, hack away at your writing.—Michael R. Burch
Pronunciation: kahy-az-moo OR kahy-az-muhs OR kee-az-muhs
Definition: a chiasmus is a parallel grammatical construction in which the repeated words are re-ordered
or otherwise altered, in order to make a point. Chiasmus is a Greek term that
means "diagonal arrangement." So perhaps think of a criss-cross, or "crossing
up" the reader. Mathematically and logically, instead of B=A, we end
up with B ~ A (with a twist):
[A] All for one [B] and one for all.—Alexander
Dumas
[A] Winners never quit [B] and quitters never
win.—Vince Lombardi
This poem of mine is a chiasmus and (as we will see) also a spoonerism:
Love is either wholly folly
or fully holy.
—Michael R. Burch
The shortest chiasmus might be a debate between God and a dying atheist:
I am!
Am I?
compiled by Michael R. Burch
Definition: a spoonerism is an aural chiasmus; the sounds are repeated and
re-ordered, creating a pun. The scientific name for spoonerism is metaphasis.
Spoonerisms in Poetry and Literature
Spoonerisms are rare in literature. The first is my all-time favorite.
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me
than a frontal lobotomy.
—Dorothy Parker
Love is either wholly folly
or fully holy.
—Michael R. Burch
Shakespeare's character Caliban is a spoonerism for "cannibal."
They were yung and easily freudened.
—James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
“What’s the katter with misses?” I muttered (word-control gone) into her hair.
“If you must know,” she said, “you do it the wrong way.”
“Show, wight ray.”
“All in good time,” responded the spoonerette.
—Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
The spoonerism is named after William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), an Oxford
don, educator and clergyman. Spooner was described as "an albino, small, with a
pink face, poor eyesight, and a head too large for his body." He was said to
have been "a genial, kindly, hospitable man." But it seems he may have been a
dyslexic of sorts who sometimes mixed up words unintentionally, saying for
instance: "Kinkering Congs Their Titles Take" in a 1930 interview. Not
altogether happy about being know for such malaprops, Spooner once denounced a crowd that had gathered to hear him speak by
saying, "You haven't come for my lecture, you just want to hear one of
those...things." Fortunately for us, poets like Dorothy Parker turned the
spoonerism into a art form while famous athletes and coaches like Yogi Berra and
Casey Stengel made them seem like a form of esoteric wisdom rather than
unintentional comedy.
Everyday Spoonerism Examples
I saw a butter-fly flutter-by.
Tease my ears, ease my tears.
I have a half-warmed fish in my mind.
Three cheers for our queer old dean! – Three cheers for our dear old Queen!
The Lord is a shoving leopard. – The Lord is a loving shepherd.
Both the chiasmus and the spoonerism are forms of the epigram (a brief saying
that is generally pithy, clever, startling or amusing). Popular forms of the
epigram include the epithet (a characterization of a person or thing, often
insulting) and the epitaph (originally a gravestone inscription). Sometimes the
lines blur. Here's an epitaph that is also a chiasmus, from
the headstone of the famous boxer Jack Dempsey:
A gentle man and a gentleman.—Unknown
American presidents and other world leaders have been masters of the chiasmus:
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a
trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.—Ronald Reagan
The difference between them and us is that we want to check government
spending and they want to spend government checks.—Ronald Reagan
If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.—Margaret Thatcher
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.—John F.
Kennedy, Jr.
The history of such epigrams goes "way back" in time. In the 6th century B.C. the
legendarily rich King Croesus of Lydia said:
In peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons.—Croesus
Paradoxical, indeed! But some epigrams are so paradoxical they seem to be
best taken for purposes of amusement and bemusement only:
I didn't really say all the things I said.—Yogi Berra
The Oscar Goes to Wilde: Chiastic Epigrams by the Divine
Oscar Wilde
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
Men always want to be a woman's first love; women like to be a man's last romance.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
The Twain Well Met: Chiastic Epigrams by
Mark
Twain
It's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that bother me, it's the parts I do understand.
If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do, you are misinformed.
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and
remove all doubt.
The Elegant Epigrams and Side-Splitting Spoonerisms of
Dorothy Parker
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me
than a frontal lobotomy.
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.
The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Wilson Reagan
I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do.
I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a
trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
The difference between
them and us is that we want to check government
spending and they want to spend government checks.
Humor Equals Wit Times Genius Squared: The Epigrams of
Albert
Einstein
Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
Epigrams Reign: Michel de Montaigne
The only thing certain is that nothing is certain.
The thing I fear most is fear.
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
I speak others' minds only to speak my own the more.
He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.
Women and We Men (Wee Men?)
A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.—Rhonda Hansome
I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.—Zsa Zsa Gabor
If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done,
ask a woman.—Margaret Thatcher
I'm not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I'm not dumb,
and I'm also not blonde.—Dolly Parton
Where there's a Will there's a Way: the Epigrams of Will
Rogers
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't
so.
Things ain't what they used to be and never was.
Woody Allen
Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the
time I don't have any fun at all.
The lion and the lamb shall lie down together but the
lamb won't get much sleep.
It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be
there when it happens.
Jonathan Swift
Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Martial Law: the Epigrams of Marcus Valerius Martial
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
Douglas Adams
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
You live and learn. Or at any rate, you live.
Nota Bene: the Notable Epigrams of
Ben Franklin
We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang
separately.
Miscellanea
Quoting one is plagiarism; quoting many is research.—Unknown
Success comes in cans, not can't s.—Unknown
Art is long, life is short.—Goethe
To the living we owe respect but to the dead we owe only the truth.—Voltaire
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