Thursday, 26 March 2015

Zeugma

A zeugma is an interesting device that can cause confusion in sentences, while also adding some flavor. Let's take a famous example from Star Trek: The Next Generation: "You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit." In this sentence, the word "execute" applies to both laws and citizens, and as a result, has a shocking effect.

Therefore, a zeugma is a figure of speech where a word applies to multiple parts of the sentence. In the above example, it has a dramatic effect. However, sometimes the attempted use of a zeugma can be confusing.

See lots more examples at
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-zeugma.html

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