Alliteration Edit to include words that start with the same letter. It makes phrases more memorable.

Polyptoton Using the same word as two parts of speech. It could be spelled differently, such as "Please, listen to my pleas." Another example is "Goodbye goodbyes" or "Never say never" or "I have been a stranger in a strange land."

Antithesis You state one thing and then you state another. Usually, you avert expectation by taking an odd turn. For example, "Journalism is not readable, and literature is not read." After journalism is not readable one expects literature is readable. Or, "If a man is a gentleman he knows quite enough. If he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." Also, statements of the form "X is Y, and not X is not Y." It doesn't have to have a turn. "The sun rises in the morning, and it sets in the evening" or "United we stand, divided we fall." "Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures."

Merism Instead of saying the word for what you're saying, such as "people," you say two of its categories, such as "Ladies and Gentleman!" "For better or for worse, for richer or poorer..." just means in all circumstances. "Look high and low." It is a special case of synecdoche.

The Blazon A long merism. These are probably not something to strive for. Think of a poem (Song of Solomon) where the lover describes each of their loves body parts and compares it to an animal or inanimate object. Hair like goats, lips like scarlet, voice like music, etc.

Synaesthesia Perceiving one sense as another. Like cool colors or blue music. "She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looked by moonlight."

Aposiopesis The use of ... to indicate silence. "If only..." Either you can't go on, don't need to go on, or wish to leave the audience hanging.

Hyperbation Putting words in an odd order. Hard to do due to inherent rules. For example, adjectives must go in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose. So you can have a great green dragon but not a green great dragon. Another is in word repetition the vowels go I A O as in 'flip-flop,' 'pitter-patter,' or 'bish-bash-bosh.' Winston Churchill once noted on bad writing "This is the kind of English up with which I will not put." The poem "Stone walls do not a prison make, \\ Nor iron bars a cage."

Anadiplosis A list where the last word in one line is first in the next. In Star Wars when Yoda says "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to suffering." Sometimes this is used to make something sound logical or true, other times it's used for rhythm as in "I weep that you are gone. That you are gone and never shall return."

Periodic sentences Sentences that could not grammatically stop until their period. For example, "I like bugs but not spiders" is not periodic since you could stop at bugs. The sentence "Until you reach the end, until you find the period, until the words run out, you cannot stop." Is periodic.

Parataxis / Hypotaxes Parataxis is regular, simple English. Hypotaxes involves a long sentence with a string of subordinate clauses. Example The alternative, should you, or any writer of English, choose to employ it (and who's to stop you?) is, by use of subordinate clause upon subordinate clause, which itself may be subordinate to those clauses which have gone before or after, to construct a sentence of such labyrinth grammatical complexity that, like Theseus before you when he searched the dark Minoan mazes that monstrous monster, half bull and half man, or rather half woman for it had been conceived from, or in, Pasiphae, herself within a Daedalian contraption of perverted intention, you must unravel a ball of grammatical yarn lest you wander forever, amazed in the maze, searching through dark eternity for a full stop.

Diacope A verbal sandwich such as "Bond. James Bond" or "Burn baby, burn." From The Godfather: "It was yous. I know. It was yous." Another: "Crises? What crises?" Can be ABA or AABA as in "Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo?" "Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty we are free at last."

Rhetorical question Used in speeches, to belittle, to show you are in agreement, accusatory such as "Did they catch you doing the crime?" Asking questions you don't know the answer to: "To be, or not to be?"

Hendiadys You change adjective-noun to noun-and-noun. "I'm going to the noisy city" becomes "I'm going to the noise and the city." "Be a gentleman and shut the door" is an example as it is really just one command. "The point and beauty of hendiadys..."

Epistrophe Ending each sentence, paragraph, or clause with the same word, phrase, or sentence. "Of the people, by the people, for the people" or "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." All things lead to the same conclusion, sometimes followed with 'but.'

Tricolon "faith, hope, love" or "I came, I saw, I conquered." You set up a pattern, then break it as in "eat, drink, and be merry" or "The good, the bad, and the ugly." "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." It can be a twist on sound: "Ready, steady, go" or "Wine, women, and song."

Epizeuxis Repeatedly using a word. "Location, location, location."

Syllepsis When one word is used in 2 or more incongruous ways. "He took his hat, no notice of his friends, a taxi, and finally his life" applies took in a variety of ways. "She made no reply, up her mind, and a dash for the door." "He fell into his chair and fast asleep."

Isocolon Two or more sentences that are grammatically parallel and structurally the same. "Roses are red, violets are blue." "Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee."

Enallage A deliberate grammatical mistake, or a phrase with unusual grammar. "Mr. Kurtz - he dead" rather than "Mr. Kurtz is dead." "We was robbed." "Love me tender" rather than "Love me tenderly."

Zeugma Applying a repeated verb by removing it. "Tom likes cherry, Bill likes strawberry, and Chad likes grape" can become "Tom likes cherry, Bob strawberry, and Chad grape." Or "The good end happily and the bad unhappily" - Oscar Wilde. The order can be reversed, "As Romeo on Juliet, I dote on thee." These phrases usually aren't memorable and the famous ones are not remembered as zeugmas.

Paradox Things can be phrased paradoxically even if they aren't. Oscar Wilde made the phrase "Screwed either way" a paradox with "There are two tragedies in life. One not getting what one wants. The other is getting it."

Chiasmus Symmetries, including palindromes or words that when spelled backwards make another word. "Tea for two and two for tea. Me for you and you for me." "All for one and one for all." "Eat to live, not live to eat." Snoop dog: "I have my mind on my money and my money on my mind." "Trees of green, red roses too" goes plant color color plant. "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan" goes "an ah oo i oo ah an", a symmetry of vowels.

Assonance Repeated vowel sounds as in "deep heat" or "blue moon."

The Fourteenth Rule Assigning an actual number to something can make It seem more mysterious. "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest" is more interesting than "Several men on a dead man's chest." Or "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" rather than "Some blackbirds baked in a pie." Numerology, though false, is popular and resonates with people.

Catachresis An impossible sentence that sounds wrong at first then sounds right. It's memorable. For example, "I will speak daggers." "Love in the first degree." "Leave a whisper on my pillow." "Thurderbirds are go."

Litotes Affirming something by denying its opposite. "It's usual" becomes "It's not unusual." It's an understatement so the reader/listener knows the obvious truth. Antarctic explorers can joke it's not a warm day. At a story of gossip the queen replied "we are not amused."

Metonymy and synecdoche A metonymy represents something by something it is related to. For example, calling a group of soldiers "red coats" since that is the type of coat they are wearing. A synecdoche is a metonymy in which something is represented by one of its parts. We need the best brains on the problem. We need a bum in every seat. "This is the face that launched a thousand ships" has both face and the launching of a thousand ships which was just a small part of the Trojan war.

Transferred epithet When an adjective is applied to the wrong noun. Instead of "The nervous man smoked a cigarette" you write "The man smoked a nervous cigarette." You can even say "A nervous cigarette was smoked."

Pleonasm The unneeded words in a sentence. "Here's a free gift and, as an added bonus, here's a festive Christmas card." Doesn't need free, added, or festive. Sometimes used for emphasis as in "I saw it with my own two eyes" or "Right is right and wrong is wrong."

Epanalepsis Beginning and ending with the same word. "The king is dead. Long live the king." "Nothing will come of nothing."

Personification / Allegory Describing inanimate things as living, whether people or creatures. "That green-eyed monster jealousy who dwells in a cave." Or half personifications, "money talks, duty calls." An allegory is a long, drawn out personification like Pilgram's Progress in which a man named Christian takes on a giant named Despair.

Hyperbole An exaggeration. People recognize them so it's okay to go crazy with these. "She has a ton of money" is a hyperbole but a better one could be "She has so much money there is hardly any left for circulation."

Adynaton An impossible statement. Pigs will fly, hell will freeze over, you might as well get blood from a stone. It's a way to say no.

Prolepsis Using a pronoun before a noun. "They muck you up, your mom and dad." Or "Nobody heard him, the dead man, but he still lay moaning." Good when kept short, like in the examples.

Congeries A congeries is a list. It can be adjectives or nouns or descriptions. It is different from the way people speak so it can grab attention.

Scesis Onomaton Sentences without verbs. Like that one. They can convey timelessness and are good for writing setting. "Implacable November weather." "Space: the final frontier."

Anaphora The most powerful rhetorical device? Starting each sentence with the same phrase (or even word). People will remember the phrase but not all the details. Use it like a gun. It's powerful but must be aimed carefully.