Let's talk about schemes. Not schemes of the nefarious sort, but schemes of word order. There are various types, including schemes of repetition ("I have a dream that one day … I have a dream that one ...

“We lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.” That was Joe Biden (quoting Bill Clinton) at the Democratic National Convention, using perhaps a politician’s favorite ...

Antimetabole is often mislabeled as chiasmus, a related but different rhetorical device. (Technically, chiasmus refers to a phrase with inverted structure but no repeated words, like Samuel Johnson’s ...

Dear readers, ask not what Slate can do for you but what you can do for Slate. Last week, we sent out a call for your best antimetabole —the rhetorical device in which words are repeated in transposed ...