Z is for ZEUGMA

The term ZEUGMA is used in several ways, all involving a sort of "yoking":

1) when an object-taking word (a preposition or transitive verb) has two or more objects on different levels, such as concrete and abstract, as in Goldsmith's witty sentence, "I had fancied you were gone down to cultivate matrimony and your estate in the country," where figurative and literal senses of the transitive verb "cultivate" are yoked together by "and."  

2) when two different words that sound exactly alike are yoked together, as in "He bolted the door and his dinner," with "bolted" being used as two different concrete verbs.

Jane Austen was extremely skilled at using these two kinds of ZEUGMA in her work, for subtly humorous effect in dialogue between her characters.

The third definition has to do with grammar--

3) a grammatical irregularity that arises when a conjunction yokes together forms that cannot all be reconciled with other material in the sentence, as in "Either you or he was responsible." The "you" cannot be reconciled with the verb "was." In "one or two years ago," the singular "one" does not match the plural "years," but hardly anyone will try to avoid such a ZEUGMA by going the long way around with "one year or two years ago".

So there you go people, literary terms from A to Z! I hope you all learned something. I enjoyed the refresher course and will remember it better for having posted about the terms. I think this time I might even remember ZEUGMA.



(This post has been inspired by and in some instances, directly quoted from A Handbook to Literature, 8th Edition, by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman)