Paul Michiels Last Updated 7/21/2014 Date of Completion 7/21/2014
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Some expert rhetors can give you a better understanding of when and how to use zeugma.
Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee
Because zeugma turns the same verb in different directions, it is useful for dealing with complex issues. This feature, combined with its inherent economy, makes zeugma a favorite for writers of headlines like these: "Mercury, and Certainty, Rising" (Monastersky 2007, A16) and "Florida Girl Learns to Lift Weights, and Gold Medals" (Goodnough 2007).
Brendan McGuigan
Zeugma is a great way to forge strong connections between different parts of your sentence. By making them share the same word to find their meaning, you make the reader see them as very closely related. This sense of interconnectedness is important in making a paper feel cohesive overall, as well as simply being pleasing to read. Many people use zeugma without knowing exactly what they're doing, and they later find those sentences to be the most delightful. By learning to intentionally create strong zeugma, you are at a great advantage.
Yeshayahu Shen
Zeugma, notably, generally uses at least two nouns following a verb and a preposition (e.g., "She went down the road in a flood of tears and a taxi"). In this instance, the reverse order still makes sense: "She went down the road in a taxi and a flood of tears." However, there may still be preference for one order over the other--the first order seems more amusing, pithy, and elegant....In short, the word order in zeugmas may often have a preference, despite the fact that comprehension could often rest on either order.
Richard A. Lanham
One word, usually a verb governs several congruent words or clauses. Puttenham calls zeugma the single supply, "because by one word we serve many clauses of one congruity, and may be likened to the man that serves many masters at once, but all of one country." He distinguishes three kinds and offers these examples, each of which uses a verb as the single governing word:
Prozeugma:
Her beauty pierced mine eye, her speech mine woeful heart,
Her presence all the powers of my discourse.
Mesozeugma:
Fair maids' beauty (alack) with years it wears away,
And with weather and sickness, and sorrow as they say.
Hypozeugma:
My mates that wont to keep me company,
And my neighbors, who dwelt next to my wall...
In my quarrel they are fled from me all.
Paul Michiels Last Updated 7/21/2014 Date of Completion 7/21/2014
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.