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英语paronomasia（双关）运用颇广，除文学作品外，还常见于笑话、谜语等，另在商品广
告里也时有运用。如：
We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately. 如果我们不团结在一起，我们将一个个被绞死。
*本句运用双关语，深刻而又幽默地说明了不团结便要灭亡的道理。 On Sunday they pray for you and on Monday they prey on you. 星期日他们为你祈祷，星期一他们则对你掠夺。
*该句巧借与谐音构成双关，辛辣地嘲讽了西方一些人貌似虔诚教徒，实则敲诈他人，灵魂丑恶。
Women have a wonderful sense of right and wrong, but little sense of right and left. 女性对善恶具有惊人的感觉，但对左右则感觉甚微。 *该句借双关语讽刺女性方向感差，开车不分左右。
A policeman said to a criminal, “You reckon your Dodge would help you up to all these dodges again” .
警察质问罪犯：“你以为你的?道奇?车又能帮你逃之夭夭吗？”
*Dodge为?道奇?牌汽车，恰与动词 dodge（躲避）构成双关。这是英语专有名词构成双关的用例。
Bridge is a game of cards which a good deal depends a good deal. 桥牌，是大部分要看发牌（的好坏）而定的纸牌游戏。
*句中重复使用a good deal，前者意为“大部分”，后者意为“好牌”，构成双关，相映成趣。 “We would like very much to have you for dinner,” as the cannibal said to the captured missionary.
嗜食人肉的生番对俘虏的传教士说：“我们想设宴招待你（吃掉你）。”
* to have you for dinner是个有歧义的结构，也构成双关，既可理解为to invite you to dinner，又可理解为to eat you for dinner。
Some persons can be everywhere at home; others can sit musingly at home and can be everywhere.
有些人可以四海为家而无拘无束，也有些人可以静坐家中而神游四海。 When a woman dresses to kill, the victim?s apt to be time. 当女人着装打扮自己去迷人时，被牺牲的往往是时间。
*该句双关别致、有趣。从句中的kill作不及物动词是理解为“使着迷”（相当于 charm），而作及物动词则理解为“消磨（时光）”，恰与主句中的time相呼应。 Try our sweet corn, and you?ll smile from ear to ear. 尝尝我们的甜玉米，包你乐得合不拢嘴。
*此为商品广告，from ear to ear一语双关，即表示因满意而乐得合不拢嘴，又表示因喜欢而吃了一穗一穗。
Tick, Tock, Tick…Talk
滴答，滴答，滴答……说吧。
*该文章标题见于美国《时代》周刊。美国总统克林顿曾因Lesinsky绯闻案而声名狼藉，险些失去总统宝座。该标题模仿时钟响声，给人一种紧迫感和期待感。最后一词由 tock改为 talk，妙不可言，表明美国人期待总统快说实话。
四、Hypallage（移位修饰） ransferred Epithet（转类形容词）
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Transferred epithet is an adjective modifying a noun which it does not normally
modify, but which makes figurative sense:
Transferred Epithet: (转类形容词) It is a figure of speech where an epithet (an adjective or descriptive phrase) is transferred from the noun it should rightly modify(修饰) to another to which it does not really apply or belong.
For instance, I spent sleepless nights on my project
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth of thieves and murderers . --George Herbert Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold / A sheep hook . . . . --John Milton ? In an age of pressurized happiness, we sometimes grow insensitive to subtle joys.
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The striking and unusual quality of the transferred epithet calls attention to it, and it can therefore be used to introduce emphatically an idea you plan to develop. The phrase will stay with the reader, so there is no need to repeat it, for that would make it too obviously rhetorical and even a little annoying. Thus, if you introduce the phrase, \electricity,\your subsequent development ought to return to more mundane synonyms, such as \may be best to save your transferred epithet for a space near the conclusion of the discussion where it will be not only clearer (as a synonym for previously stated and clearly understandable terms) but more effective, as a kind of final, quintessential, and yet novel conceptualization of the issue. The reader will love it.
When you compare a noun to a noun, the simile is usually introduced by like: I see men, but they look like trees, walking. --Mark 8:24
? After such long exposure to the direct sun, the leaves of the houseplant looked like pieces of overcooked bacon.
? The soul in the body is like a bird in a cage.
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When a verb or phrase is compared to a verb or phrase, as is used:
They remained constantly attentive to their goal, as a sunflower always turns and stays focused on the sun.
? Here is your pencil and paper. I want you to compete as the greatest hero would in the race of his life.
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Often the simile--the object or circumstances of imaginative identity (called the vehicle, since it carries or conveys a meaning about the word or thing which is likened to it)-precedes the thing likened to it (the tenor). In such cases, so usually shows the comparison:
The grass bends with every wind; so does Harvey.
? The seas are quiet when the winds give o're; / So calm are we when passions are no more.
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--Edmund Waller
But sometimes the so is understood rather than expressed:
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As wax melts before the fire,/ may the wicked perish before God. --Psalm 68:2b
Whenever it is not immediately clear to the reader, the point of similarity between the unlike objects
must be specified to avoid confusion and vagueness. Rather than say, then, that \is like muck,\like each other:
And money is like muck, not good except it be spread. --Francis Bacon
? Fortune is like glass--the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken. --Publilius Syrus
? Like a skunk, he suffered from bad publicity for one noticeable flaw, but bore no one any ill will.
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Hypallage（移位修饰）又称作Transferred Epithet（转类形容词）。其修辞方式是将本该用来修饰某类名词的修饰语移用于修饰按常规不能修饰的另一类名词。英语Hypallage的用法看似有违常理，不合逻辑，实则语言凝练、形式新颖、生动形象、新鲜活泼。 从结构上看，可用于移位修饰的词语或结构主要有以下六种： （1）描绘性形容词移位修饰名词 I spoke to them in hesitant French. 我结结巴巴地用法语对他们说。 （2）复合形容词移位修饰名词
People listened with open-moused astonishment while the shocking new sank in. 当这个令人震惊的消息传来时，人们听了都惊得目瞪口呆。 （3）形容词性名词移位修饰名词
The United States has now set up a loneliness industry.
美国现在已创建了一种为孤独的老年人服务的社会服务项目。 （4）现在分词移位修饰名词
They prolonged the clasp for the photographers, exchanging smiling words. 他们握手时边笑边谈，以此延长握手时间，好让摄影师拍照。 （5）过去分词移位修饰名词
An awed hush fell upon the bystanders. 在场的人都惊奇得目瞪口呆。 （6）of结构用于移位修饰 The Grapes of Wrath 《愤怒的葡萄》
*此系美国作家斯坦贝克（J. Steinbeck）所著小说名，wrath本该用于形容那些历尽艰辛、受骗上当去西部当采摘工的移民，作者却移用来修饰他们所采摘的葡萄。移民们的命运何等悲惨，连葡萄都愤怒了！
就修饰语同被修饰语的关系看，Hypallage的运用大致可归纳为以下几种： （1）说明人的修饰语移用于说明具体事物或抽象概念 He crashed down on a protesting chair.
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他一屁股坐了下来，椅子吱呀作响，好象是在抗议似的。
*说明人的行为的Protesting移用于修饰具体事物chair。
He behaved with guilty caution and rather enjoyed stealing a march on Doctor Ed.
他的一举一动小心谨慎，心中虽然有些内疚，但为能偷偷地抢在埃德大夫之前颇为得意。 * 形容人的心态的Guilty移用于抽象概念caution。 （2）说明动物的修饰语移用于说明事物
The American society saw a gnawing poverty during the tears of the Great Depression. 在大萧条年代，美国社会充斥了令人心酸的贫困。
*To gnaw通常指动物、昆虫的“咬”，在本句中移用于修饰 poverty，意为“令人心酸的贫困”。 （3）说明抽象事物的修饰语移用于说明具体事物 The sky turned to a tender pallet of pink and blue. 天空成了一块柔和的粉红色和蓝色的调色板。
*Tender常用于说明抽象事物，此处转饰具体事物“调色板”。 （4）说明具体事物的修饰语移用于说明抽象事物
All the time the creeping fear that he would never come back to her grew strong within her. 她的心一直被那越来越强烈的恐惧感揪着，她感到他是永远不能回到她身边来了。 *表示具体动作的Creeping转移修饰抽象事物 fear。
（5）说明具体事物的修饰语移用于说明另一通常不能修饰的具体事物 Mark Twain had to leave the city because of the scathing columns he wrote.
由于马克*吐温写了一些尖锐而辛辣的专栏文章，所以他不得不离开那个城市。 *恰当运用Hypallage可增加词趣，使描写对象生动、突出，寓意深刻，耐人寻味
Syllepsis: (一语双叙）
It has two connotations.
1.In the first case, it is a figure by which a word, or a particular form or inflection of a word, refers to two or more words in the same sentence, while properly applying to or agreeing with only on of them in grammar or syntax(句法).
For example: He addressed you and me, and desired us to follow him. (Here us is used to refer to you and me.) 2,In the second case, it a word may refer to two or more words in the same sentence.
For example: while he was fighting , and losing limb and mind, and dying, others stayed behind to pursue education and career. (Here to losing one's limbs in literal; to lose one's mind is figurative, and means to go mad.)
Sarcasm: (讽刺）
Sarcasm is a strong form of irony. It attacks in a taunting and bitter manner, and its aim is to disparage, ridicule and wound the feelings of the subject attacked.
For example, laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps break through.
Paradox: (似非而是的隽语)
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It is a figure of speech consisting of a statement or proposition which on the face of it seems
self-contradictory, absurd or contrary to established fact or practice, but which on further thinking and study may prove to be true, well-founded, and even to contain a succinct point. For example: more haste, less speed.
Epigram: (警句)
It states a simple truth pithily(有利地) and pungently(强烈地). It is usually terse and arouses interest and surprise by its deep insight into certain aspects of human behavior or feeling. For instance, Few, save the poor, feel for the poor.
Apostrophe：
(顿呼) In this figure of speech, a thing, place, idea or person (dead or absent) is addressed as if present, listening and understanding what is being said. For instance, England! awake! awake! awake!
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