figures-of-speech

what’s the expression for people who give moralistic lectures, but often are guilty of the same “sin”?

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People who give bible-thumping/koran-thumping moralizing lectures about various “sins”, but often indulge in the very same sins they lecture against. For example, many anti-gay preachers often turn out to be gay themselves. Is there an expression, idiom or figure of speech to describe such people? Answer A popular idiom for this is the pot calling … Read more

What is it called when you combine two distinct phrases with a common middle phrase or word?

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Is there a term for when you combine two distinct phrases together with a middle term? For example: Big Band Aid (Big Band/Band Aid. Alternately, a benefit concert for swing musicians) Insane Asylum Seekers (Crazy, but at least they’re free) I’m thinking it might be an apo koinou construction, but the examples of that I’ve … Read more

Alternative to “queer the deal”?

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The phrase queer at­ti­tude used to be com­mon­place, sim­ply mean­ing a strange at­ti­tude or un­help­ful be­hav­ior. Un­for­tu­nately in the present era, I once used that phrase and sadly of­fended an LGBT per­son, since peo­ple to­day use queer to mean ho­mo­sex­ual. I can avoid say­ing queer at­ti­tude by just say­ing strange at­ti­tude. What’s a mod­ern al­ter­na­tive … Read more

A single word describing a piece of literature that contains many figures of speech

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I’m looking for a positive word. A word that describes a writer and/or a piece of their work… which has the quality of being densely packed with impressive uses of literary devices. Example sentence: He tends to like authors that are ………. He only appreciates songs if the lyrics are ……… The word I’m looking … Read more

What terms I can use to say the something is very easy to do, to learn, etc?

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What terms I can use to say the something is very easy to do, to learn, etc? I have thought about easy-peasy, like “this is easy-peasy to do”, or “a piece of cake”. So, in general, Assembling this furniture is _________ [to do]. Is there a fun/cool way to say that?  Some slang that is … Read more

Is there a word or phrase for a person who is easily outraged (or fakes it) for the sake of attention in English?

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This person gets agitated and outraged, so as to get attention as a moral torchbearer for an issue. Often they forget the issue and move on to next issue with out making any effort to support or resolve the issue with in few hours. Answer I think you’re looking for demagogue: a person, especially an … Read more

Is there a word for intentional misspelling as a literary device?

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Good examples would be writing “nite” for “night”, “4” for “for”, “wimmin” for “women”. I guess it also applies to substituting final s with “z”, as in “wordz”. In the way that Prince was prone to. Recently I’ve seen it a lot in alternative literature and music. Example sentence: “Nice … in that album title … Read more

What is the term used for a place name that represents something other than the place itself?

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There is a special term for when a place name is representative of something other than the actual place itself but I can’t remember what it is. For example: ‘Brussels’ may be used to refer to the European Union or ‘Washington’ to refer to the U.S. political establishment. Does anyone know what this term would … Read more