Syntax & Word Order
Zeugma
One verb governing two or more objects in different senses — often one literal, one figurative: 'She arrived in a taxi and a flood of tears.' The verb forks midway, and the fork reads as wit.
"She arrived in a taxi and a flood of tears."
Don't confuse it with. Syllepsis is often used interchangeably; strictly, syllepsis requires the senses to differ while zeugma is any shared-verb yoking.
In the Reader — 13 excerpts
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
The trumpets sounded, and instantly the arena was cleared for the race. The people shouted in a frenzy of gladness, and the earth and the air seemed to tremble with the transport.
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were
The bull was squared on all four feet to be killed, and Romero killed directly below us. He killed not as he had been forced to by the last bull, but as he wanted to. He profiled directly in front of the bull, drew the sword out of the folds of the
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They
"Community, Identity, Stability." The words mocked the gigantic letters in which they were written. The D.H.C. for Central London always made a point of personally conducting his new students round the various departments.
The sun lay on the grass and warmed it, and in the shade under the grass the insects
The supermarket shelves have been rearranged. It happened one day, without warning. There is agitation and panic in the aisles, dismay in the faces of older shoppers.
I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.
They wept together, for the things they now knew.
…heart of it, her older sister, her back arched, her arm upraised, made Briony's writing ambitions, which were to be a post office clerk, seem childish.
Travels with
Devices that share a passage with zeugma most often — company reveals character.
Passive Voice 6 Parataxis 5 Asyndeton 5 Litotes 4 Anaphora 4 Hyperbole 4 Antithesis 3 Personification 3
The rest of the family
Hyperbaton Anastrophe Periodic Sentence Cumulative (Loose) Sentence Parataxis Parenthesis Apposition / Appositive Hendiadys Pleonasm Enumeration / Accumulatio Passive Voice Cleft Sentence