Antimetabole

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In rhetoric, antimetabole (/æntɪməˈtæbəliː/ AN-ti-mə-TAB-ə-lee) is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed order; for example, "I know what I like, and I like what I know". It is related to, and sometimes considered a special case of, chiasmus.

An antimetabole can be predictive, because it is easy to reverse the terms. It may trigger deeper reflection than merely stating one half of the line.^[1]

Examples[]

• "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno" ("One for all, all for one")
• "Eat to live, not live to eat." Attributed to Socrates
• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." — John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
• "When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
• "With my mind on my money and my money on my mind." — Attributed to Snoop Dogg in the song "Gin and Juice"
• "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, Party always finds you!" — Yakov Smirnoff
• "The great object of [Hamlet's] life is defeated by continually resolving to do, yet doing nothing but resolve." — Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Shakespeare's Hamlet
• "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us." — Malcolm X, Malcolm X
• "He was just the man for such a place, and it was just the place for such a man." — Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass^[2]
• "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" — Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, Scene 1, 12
• “And we’ll lead, not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.” - Joseph R. Biden, Inaugural Address^[3]
• "All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime" - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray^[4]

Etymology[]

It is derived from the Greek ἀντιμεταβολή (antimetabolḗ), from ἀντί (antí, "against, opposite") and μεταβολή (metabolḗ, "turning about, change").

See also[]

• Anadiplosis
• Chiasmus
• Figure of speech
• Rhetoric
• Russian reversal
• Symploce

References[]

• Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.

External links[]

Look up antimetabole in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Audio illustrations of antimetabole
• Examples in U.S.A politics.
• NPR story
• Antimetabole detector online

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