

Now, that really is a tease.Ģ7 Figures of speech answers Official answers from Ella Barronħ. There could be up to 49 figures of speech expressions captured within her cartoon. In her post, Ella lists all 27 figures of speech answers. She added this link to Ella Barron’s answer on Twitter. Now it’s up to you.īut are you up to the challenge of finding all 27 examples in the image?Ī big thank you to Kim, who posted a comment on this article.

You know how quickly time flies.īut, well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking an egg, can you?Īnyway, I have given you more than enough clues to get you halfway to solving the puzzle. If you manage to find the five or so that I have missed, please let me know by adding your comment to put me out of my misery.ĭo it quickly, though, before I kick the bucket. Maybe you can do better than me and find all twenty-seven figures of speech.īut I don’t want to give you a red herring or spill the beans. I got as far as identifying twenty or so from the picture but then ran into trouble. Perhaps Ella prefers to play her cards close to her chest and leave a little mystery by keeping an ace up her sleeve. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an answer list for each of the 27 figures of speech examples represented in the cartoon. She has been very cunning, indeed.Ģ7 Figures of speech cartoon by Ella Baron They are a mixture of metaphors and similes, and I wonder if you can identify all of them.Īt first glance, it looks like an easy puzzle to solve.īut once you get past identifying the first ten to fifteen idioms, it gets a little more difficult. I stumbled upon this absolutely brilliant cartoon by Ella Baron in the Times Literary Supplement on Twitter.Įlla has illustrated twenty-seven figurative language terms. Here is a fun challenge for you to test your knowledge of idiomatic and figurative speech. How good is your knowledge of figures of speech? I know you know, but before you disappear off into the ether … We use a phrase with an object to create an implied or abstract meaning. You know all this, so I don’t need to remind you about idiomatic speech. To be hit for six, to be caught on a sticky wicket, to be stumped, I did it off my own bat, to be caught out, and to bowl a maiden over. I love the last one. One of my pet sources of idioms and expressions is my favorite sport – cricket. Examples include, I’m as busy as a bee, and it’s as dead as a doornail or dodo. Some expressions use alliteration where a consonant sound is repeated. Or, it fell off the back of a truck, when in fact, it was stolen. I’m going to let you go to replace you’re fired. They are very common forms of saying something in a way that is more polite or not as blunt or direct. Many figures of speech examples include euphemisms. Or, Tiger Woods was a half-decent golf player in his prime. Or, it’s a little fresh today when the temperature is well below zero.

It’s only a scratchwhen referring to a deep or nasty wound. The opposite, of course, is an understatement that makes a situation seem less important. I have a million things to do at the office today, or it cost me an arm and a leg. It deliberately makes a situation significant. Other rhetorical devices can use a chiasmus, where the second part of the expression is balanced against the first.įor example, you should work to live, not live to work.Įxaggeration, or hyperbole in literary terms, can quickly turn a word or phrase from literal language into figurative. The most common literary devices are metaphors and similes, which are both well-known figurative expressions.Īnother type of figurative form uses word order repetition or similar successive clauses, such as in the wrong place at the wrong time. Types of expressions in popular figures of speech You might be trying to create verbal irony, express human qualities, or add color to your text. If you are a writer or an author, you are using words and expressions, both literally and figuratively, all the time. These two figurative language phrases literally mean it is raining very heavily, and I’ll gladly assist you. Both of these expressions are a play on words.
