Product Description

Engaging new territory for word lovers, speech makers, and party show-offs--this quotable collection enshrines a classic linguistic trick.

Pardon me--do you know what chiasmus means? Here's a hint: Mae West used chiasmus in her signature line "It's not the men in my life; it's the life in my men." So did John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

Language maven Dr. Mardy Grothe discovered that many of the world's great wags and eloquent orators have been virtual masters of chiasmus--Churchill, Wilde, Shaw, Ben Franklin, Samuel Johnson, and Shakespeare, to name just a handful. In this unprecedented and quotable collection, he assembles the best examples of chiasmus ever written or spoken. Not since the oxymoron, the palindrome, or has there been a whole new category of wordplay so likely to fire the public imagination. In the tradition of and , ...will make chiasmus a household word and help you wax profound in the company of the greatest wits of all time.