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Hypophora, Anthypophora: Answering Your Own Questions

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6:43AM
Aug-24-08


Grant Barrett

Admin

Brooklyn, New York

posts 490

Can you? Yes. Answering your own questions. The trick of answering one’s own question - allowing a speaker to control the “dialogue” and anticipate objections - was probably invented long before we had writing with which to record it. In the vocabulary of rhetoric, much of which dates to ancient Greece, it’s called hypophora (hy-PAH-fer-uh), or sometimes anthypophora.

3:05PM
Aug-24-08


EmmettRedd

posts 26

Is it a chaimus, or something else, when I used the following email tagline?

“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
How much ground would a ground hog hog if a groundhog could hog ground?
How much pig could a whistlepig whistle if a whistlepig could whistle pig?”

Since the animal has three names, it seems a three tongue twister for each is appropriate.

Emmett

8:10AM
Aug-25-08


martha

Moderator

martha

posts 454

Emmett, if that’s not chiasmus, it’s pretty darned close, with the nice X-shape in each line.

When I think of hypophora (which I admit isn’t all that often), I think of Donald Rumsfeld. I remember him doing lots of that during news conferences.

Meanwhile, I’m all aswoon at having learned there’s actually going to be a movie called “Synedoche, New York.”

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