Meryl's Notes Blog

Don’t remember studying anthimeria in school. Its origin is Greek meaning “one part for another.” “Google” is a popular anthimeria for searching. People say, “Google that.” Of course, using a company name as a generic name or verb is dangerous for the company. Here’s a good read on the topic.

Better to verb nouns with non-proper words. Here are a few I wrote:

• Math homework stresses her.

• Yesterday, I mahjongged at Cindy’s house.

• I find it entertaining to verb nouns. Not exciting, but what I could come up with then. The next assignment referred to rhetorical figures, a fun read and a challenge to write an example of each of the following: anaphora, antimetabole, enthymeme, epistrophe, parallelism, scesis onomaton, and symploce.

I know I used a couple of these in recent writings, and of course, I couldn’t find them when I needed them. I enjoyed the exercise, but didn’t have much to draw on when I did the assignment. Oh sure, I’ve got years of my life — but everything isn’t in the forefront of my mind right now. These provide writers with many ideas on how to twist the writing into something more interesting.

Martin Luther King used a few of these in his “I have a dream” speech.