Mo's Rather Interesting World of Figures of Speech and Other Rhetorical Devices

#1 in an occasional series -- your challenge is to use it at least once today.

Hysteron proteron

Literally, something like "latter first".

Means: transposing the natural order of concepts in a sentence, ie. putting the cart before the horse. An example from Shakespeare: "Th' Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,/ With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder" -- actually they turn the rudder and then fly, but this way round it supposedly has more rhetorical force (and better fits the scansion).

I don't think people really use this device these days, it feels rather forced. I guess a related modern practice though is for the second concept to be a modifying clause, eg "I'm going home, after I send this email" rather than the natural sequence "I'll send this email, then I'm going home" -- the effect is to emphasize the going home, and to suggest that the email is less important.

Gastrofake

Interesting article about how easy it is for chefs to avoid having to cook properly. Saw quite a few dishes there that I've encountered recently...

I think I might have to send off for some of those catalogues though, sounds like they'd be just as good for making easy dinners!