Not all those who wander are lost
‘Not all those who wander are lost’
- JR Tolkein.
Socrates and Tyrant Children
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
- attrib. (possibly incorrectly)to Socrates c.410 BC
Bildungsroman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsroman
A bildungsroman (German pronunciation: [ˈbɪldʊŋs.roˌmaːn]; German: “novel of education”) is a novelistic genre that arose during the German Enlightenment, in which the author presents the psychological, moral and social shaping of the personality of a (usually young) protagonist. An example of this would be Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
Failing hilariously
“Things are rarely just crazy enough to work, but they’re frequently just crazy enough to fail hilariously.”
- XKCD mouseover text http://www.xkcd.com/580/
Polysyndeton
Ripped directly from wikip: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysyndeton
Polysyndeton is the use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted (as in “he ran and jumped and laughed for joy”). It is a stylistic scheme used to achieve a variety of effects: it can increase the rhythm of prose, speed or slow its pace, convey solemnity or even ecstatic, childlike exuberance. In grammar, a polysyndetic coordination is a coordination in which all conjuncts are linked by coordinating conjunctions (usually and, but, or or in English).
Polysyndeton is used extensively in the King James Version of the Bible. For example:
- And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. Genesis 7:22-24
- Or if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcase of an unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean cattle, or the carcase of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty. Leviticus 5:1-3
Writers of modern times have also used the scheme:
- “I said, ‘Who killed him?’ and he said ‘I don’t know who killed him, but he’s dead all right,’ and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights or windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was right only she was full of water.” Ernest Hemingway, After the Storm
It can be contrasted with asyndeton, which is a coordination containing no conjunctions, and syndeton, with one conjunction.
