Question 1

What is a figure of speech?

Accepted Answer

A figure of speech is a use of words that says more, or other, than the plain words do. "The sun is hot" is plain fact. "The sun is a fireball" is not literally true, but it puts a picture in your head. Similes, metaphors, personification and hyperbole are all figures of speech.

Question 2

What is a simile?

Accepted Answer

A simile compares two different things using "like" or "as", so the reader sees one through the other. "He ran like the wind" and "as brave as a lion" are similes. Not every "like" makes one: "I like mangoes" uses like as a verb, and "He looks like his father" is a real, literal likeness.

Question 3

What is a metaphor?

Accepted Answer

A metaphor says one thing is another, with no "like" or "as". "The playground was an oven" is not true, but it shows something true: the playground was very hot. A metaphor is not a lie, because the reader knows it is a picture. It often feels stronger and more certain than a simile.

Question 4

What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor?

Accepted Answer

The difference is one word. A simile compares with "like" or "as": "Time is like a river." A metaphor says one thing is the other, or simply calls it that: "Time is a river", "a blanket of fog". Both can paint the same picture; the metaphor often sounds more certain.

Question 5

What is personification?

Accepted Answer

Personification gives a thing, an animal or an idea a human action or feeling. "The wind whispered" and "The old car coughed and groaned up the hill" are personification, because wind cannot whisper and cars cannot cough. "The dog barked" is not, because a dog really barks. It usually lives in the verb or the adjective.

Question 6

What is hyperbole?

Accepted Answer

Hyperbole stretches the truth to show a strong feeling or to be funny. "I am so hungry I could eat an elephant" and "This bag weighs a tonne" are hyperbole. Nobody is meant to believe the number. It is not a lie, and a true large number, such as a country's real population, is not hyperbole.

Question 7

What is onomatopoeia?

Accepted Answer

Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the noise it names: buzz, splash, bang, hiss, the tick-tock of a clock. "The bees buzzed" uses it. A word that only describes a noise, such as "loud", is not onomatopoeia, because it does not sound like anything. Say the word aloud to test it.

Question 8

What is alliteration?

Accepted Answer

Alliteration repeats the same first sound across nearby words, as in "Peter's pink parrot". Count sounds by ear, not letters: "city" and "cat" share a letter but not a sound. Assonance repeats a vowel sound instead. Chapter 24 hears these as rhythm; this chapter names them and asks what they add.

Question 9

What is an oxymoron?

Accepted Answer

An oxymoron puts two words with opposite meanings side by side, usually in a short phrase: "a deafening silence", "bittersweet", "an open secret". The clash shows a mixed or surprising truth, such as a quiet so complete it feels loud. "It was hot outside but cold inside" is a plain contrast, not an oxymoron.

Question 10

What are the three kinds of irony?

Accepted Answer

Verbal irony says the opposite of what is meant: "What lovely weather," in a storm. Situational irony is an outcome opposite to what was expected, such as a fire station burning down. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows what a character does not. Plain bad luck is not irony, because nothing reversed an expectation.

Question 11

What is an idiom?

Accepted Answer

An idiom is a fixed saying whose meaning is not the meaning of its words. "It is raining cats and dogs" means raining very hard; "a piece of cake" means very easy; "Break a leg!" means good luck. Its words cannot be swapped, and many idioms began as fresh metaphors that hardened over time.

Question 12

How do I identify a figure of speech?

Accepted Answer

Use the Literal Test. Read the line as plain fact. Ask whether it could really be true here. If not, ask what is happening: is something compared, given life, stretched or sounded out? Name the figure the question asks about, then say what it makes the reader see, hear or feel.

Question 13

What is an "as ... as" simile?

Accepted Answer

A simile can compare with "as ... as": "as light as a feather", "as quick as a flash", "as sweet as jaggery". The second thing shows how much. "She is as tall as my brother" is different: it compares two real people, so it is literal, not a picture.

Question 14

Is a figure of speech a lie?

Accepted Answer

No. A lie tries to make you believe something false. A figure of speech is not meant to be believed as plain fact, and the reader knows it. "The classroom was a zoo" does not claim there were animals; it shows how noisy and wild the room was.

Question 15

Where does personification usually appear in a sentence?

Accepted Answer

Usually in the verb or the adjective. "The trees danced in the storm" gives life through the verb; "the lazy river" gives it through the adjective. Look for the word that gives a human action or feeling, then ask what mood it gives the scene: a howling wind feels wild, a smiling sun feels warm.

When words say more than they mean