Fact of the Day: English

Please excuse me while I hammer a few rhetorical terms into my head for AP English :P

Chiasmus: Arrangement of repeated thoughts in the pattern of X Y Y X. Chiasmus is often short and summarizes a main idea.

Example: "Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves." —Shakespeare, Othello 3.3 ("Dotes" means the same as "strongly loves" and "doubts" means the same as "suspects")

Concrete Language: Language that describes specific, observable things, people or places, rather than ideas or qualities.

Connotation: Rather than the dictionary definition, the associations suggested by a word. Implied meaning rather than literal meaning or denotation.

Consonance: Repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity.

Conventional: Following certain conventions or traditional techniques of writing. An overreliance on conventions may result in a lack of originality. The five-paragraph theme is considered conventional.

Cumulative: Sentence which begins with the main idea and then expands on that idea with a series of details or other particulars.

Deconstruction: A critical approach that debunks single definitions of meaning based on the instability of language. The deconstructionist re-examines literary conventions in light of a belief that deconstruction "is not dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself."

Didactic: A term used to describe fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.