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Say what you mean... but not always, please

It is generally accepted that honesty is the best policy and hypocrites are frowned upon, but it is really always bad to say one thing and mean another?

Lady Liberty: An allegory of freedom
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Consider the allegory. It comes to us from a combination of the Greek allos, other, with agoreuein, to speak publicly (from agora, marketplace), i.e., the conveying of something other than what is said aloud; a hidden or extra meaning. Thus, an allegory is a symbolic representation, particularly in literature but also in art. A short allegory is also known as a parable, e.g., Aesop's Fables; an example of a longer one is George Orwell's satiric novel Animal Farm. The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, welcoming immigrants to a new life of freedom, is an allegory in sculpture with her uplifted torch and chains beneath her foot.

Here are some other popular figures of speech:

• Metaphor — the use of a word or phrase that ordinarily means one thing to mean another, with a comparison implied. You are my sunshine; fishing for compliments; the Cold War heated up; a beacon of hope
• Simile — a type of metaphor using the words "like," "as," or "than": busy as a bee, sleeping like a log
• Conceit — an extended or elaborate metaphor, usually comparing two very different things. There is no frigate like a book / To take us lands away (Emily Dickinson)
• Metonymy — the substitution of something closely related to a thing for the thing itself, or an attribute of a thing for the thing itself. The pen is mightier than the sword; the briny deep (for the ocean)
• Synecdoche — a type of metonymy in which a part is used to represent the whole, or vice versa; or the specific is used for the general or vice versa. Paper or plastic? (i.e., cash or credit card); to lend a hand

When figures of speech are overused they become cliches, when they aim too high they can be esoteric and impenetrable; either way they lose their meaning. Between these horns of this dilemma, however, lies a land veined with rich rhetorical ore: Don't be afraid to mean what you don't say!

See also figures of speech.

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See our Say What? blog to see interesting uses of strange words.
Last updated: July 8, 2006