The reversible raincoat or how I learned to stop worrying and love antimetabole

Posted 17 weeks ago by Bear

The reversible raincoat is the nickname speechwriters have given to the rhetorical device in which words are repeated in transposed order, as with Churchill's famous line: "Let us preach what we practice—let us practice what we preach." The fancy Greek name for the trick is antimetabole.

It's very popular in this years election cycle.

On a related note, my least favorite business cliche is "working hard or hardly working?"

1 Comments

dave ~ 17 weeks ago

I blame 80% of work related cliche's on Mike Judge and Ron Livingston. The other 20% I blame on Family Guy. The point here? Work related cliches almost always end up in someone getting punched in the oh-noes.

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