Writing Devices - Humor Hyperbole Examples: Effect: to characterize a person or a place 1) A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. - Harper Lee 2) Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night before. - Paul Bunyon 3) It's a slow burg-I spent a couple of weeks there one day. - Carl Sandburg 4) At that time Bogota was a remote, lugubrious city where an insomniac rain had been falling since the beginning of the 16th century. - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 5) It is, indeed, amazing to contemplate so vast a vacuity. One thinks of the interstellar spaces, of the colossal reaches of the now mythical ether. Nearly the whole of Europe could be lost in that stupendous region of fat farms, shoddy cities, and paralyzed cerebrums: one could throw in France, Germany, and Italy, and still have room for the British Isles. - Henry Louis Mencken Effect: to insult 6) ELLARD. That's my favorite name. If I ever catch me that chipmunk, that's what he's gonna be-- Buddy the chipmunk. CATHERINE. Ellard, you couldn't catch a chipmunk if all its legs were broken and it was glued to the palm of your hand. - Larry Shue 7) A man can have a belly you could house commercial aircraft in and a grand total of eight greasy strands of hair, which he grows real long and combs across the top of his head so that he looks, when viewed from above, like an egg in the grasp of a giant spider, plus this man can have B.O. to the point where he interferes with radio transmissions, and he will still be convinced that, in terms of attractiveness, he is borderline Don Johnson. - Dave Barry Effect: to compliment 8) I think this is the most extraordinary collection of human talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House--with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. - Kennedy 1962 Effect: to convey a sense of resignation, to "asserts the incredible in order to arrive at the credible" (Seneca) 9) Why does a boy who's fast as a jet take all day and sometimes two to get to school? - John Ciardi 10) 'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger - John Hume 11) The FBI says they can prove it through physics in a nuclear laboratory. Theoretical physics can also prove that an elephant can hang off a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy! - JFK the Movie 12) Michael Palin: "You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for 14 hours a day week in, week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt! Graham Chapman: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky! Terry Gilliam: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at 12 o'clock at night and lick the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked 24 hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife. Eric Idle: I had to get up in the morning at 10 o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work 29 hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah." Michael Palin: But you try and tell the young people today that and they won't believe ya'. All: Nope, nope," (Monty Python, "The Four Yorkshiremen"). Effect: To make someone seem larger than life by applying exaggeration on purpose. 13) Born on a mountain top in Tennessee Greenest state in the land of the free Raised in the woods so he knew ev'ry tree Kilt him a be 'are [bear] when he was only three Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier - Thomas W. Blackburn Effect: in advertising, to exaggerate the effect of a product or service 14) When you're here, you're family. (Olive Garden) 15) The best a man can get (Gillette) 16) The best thing about visiting the President is the food! Now, since it was all free, and I wasn't hungry but thirsty, I must've drank me fifteen Dr. Peppers. (Forrest Gump) Effect: to emphasize a point and focus a reader's attention on a socio-political or economic problem 17) I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust. - Jonathan Swift Effect: to describe his love and desire for his beloved 18) My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And, frantic-mad with evermore unrest,My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly expressed. For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. - Shakespeare, Sonnet 147 (layered with anti-thesis) 19) I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street, I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky - W.H. Auden