Radio Show, "A Way With Words," Mentions Chiasmus
In June 2023, A Way With Words, “a call-in public radio show about language,” included a segment about chiasmus.
Ben from Chicago called in with a question about the line, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” The hosts explained that it was an example of antimetabole, a sub-category of chiasmus, where words are inverted. Chiasmus, which is more broad in scope, involves “inverting the syntax or structure or ideas.”
Here is their summary of the segment:
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog is an example of the rhetorical device called antimetabole, from Greek words that mean “a turning about.” Other examples include When the going gets tough, the tough get going and Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Antimetabole involves inverting the words in a statement, and it’s a subset of chiasmus, which can also involve inverting the syntax or structure or ideas, as in the line from Martin Luther King Jr’s. famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere. The word chiasmus derives from the X-shaped Greek letter chi. For a popular book about chiasmus, check out Never Let a Kiss Fool You or a Fool Kiss You by Mardy Grothe.
You can listen to the segment here.
A decade earlier, in December 2012, A Way With Words included a minute-long segment about chiasmus and shared a chiasm by Alfred E. Neuman:
“We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.”
You can listen to the segment here.
In May 2011, Bascom from California called in with a question about what he called reverse parables, which are “bits of wisdom” structured as “two-part sentences” where the second part is a reversal of the first.
The hosts explained that the actual terms for these reverse parables are antimetabole and chiasmus.
You can listen to the segment here.
The book mentioned by the hosts, Never Let a Kiss Fool You or a Fool Kiss You by Mardy Grothe, is a collection of chiasms by famous people, organized by topic. It also includes a helpful introduction that explains how widely and commonly chiasmus has been used throughout history.
I accidentally stumbled upon the word while browsing through a dictionary eight years ago and have since discovered that many of the world’s great wits, profound thinkers, and eloquent orators—Churchill, Wilde, Shaw, Ben Franklin, Samuel Johnson, and Shakespeare—have been virtual masters of chiasmus. Impressive examples of chiasmus have also come from such moderns as Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Lenny Bruce, Dorothy Parker, and George Carlin. Even Newt Gingrich.
In using chiasmus, these folks are part of a tradition that goes back several thousand years. Chiasmus, you see, is as old as recorded civilization. It shows up in ancient Sanskrit, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian texts. It appears in ancient Chinese writings, including the Analects of Confucius. It was an integral feature of ancient Hebrew poetry and is common in both the Old and New Testaments. To the Greeks, though, chiasmus held a special fascination, as Greek sages and orators strove to outdo one anothers’ chiastic creations.
Of course, chiasmus is more than just a “two-part sentence” that shares “bits of wisdom,” but it’s nice to see it mentioned with admiration in popular culture.