Daily Archives: April 14, 2017

Anacoluthon

Anacoluthon (an-a-co-lu’-thon): A grammatical interruption or lack of implied sequence within a sentence. That is, beginning a sentence in a way that implies a certain logical resolution, but concluding it differently than the grammar leads one to expect. Anacoluthon can be either a grammatical fault or a stylistic virtue, depending on its use. In either case, it is an interruption or a verbal lack of symmetry. Anacoluthon is characteristic of spoken language or interior thought, and thus suggests those domains when it occurs in writing.

That bomb was huge–bigger than huge: gargantuan and don’t get a stiff neck looking at your iPhone!

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

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