1. “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and lightning. ”
-Mark Twain

2. Figurative Language

3. Imagery:
Language that creates pictures in the mind and excites the senses.

5. Metaphor:
A figure of speech, not using the words like or as, that compares two usually unrelated things.

6. Example:
The Rain Came Down in Long Knitting Needles.

7. Example from Lord of the Flies:
" The afternoon sun emptied down invisible arrows.”
“The whole space was walled with dark aromatic bushes, and was a bowl of heat and light.”

8. Love 9 to 5 Job Hunger Highway Pain TV Dinner Happiness Flower Sleep Cloud Desire Hammer Friends Clock Life Park

9. Uses like or as to compare usually unrelated things.
Simile:
Uses like or as to compare usually unrelated things.

10. Example:
“The water bounded from the mountain top, tore leaves and branches from the trees, poured like a cold shower over the struggling heap on the sand.”
“Then the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall."

11. “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”
-Forrest Gump

12. Allusion:
Reference to a well known person, place, thing or idea.

13. Kanye West over here keeps interrupting me.

14. Allusions in Romeo and Juliet
“Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit with Cupid’s arrow…From Love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharmed (Romeo: I, i, ).
“You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings and soar with them…” (Mercutio: I, iv, 17 & 18).

15. Caesar in “Mean Girls”

16. Contrast Imagery:
“Ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country.” -John F. Kennedy

17. Antithesis:
The specific balancing or contrasting of one term against another, which is the opposite.

18. Example:
It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, experienced or inexperienced, rich or poor, you can make a difference in this organization.

19. Oxymoron:
Places words that are in opposition directly side by side

20. Examples: She is the momentary love of my life.
My parents want me to have such boring fun.
Because I always fall graciously, my friends say that I have athletic clumsiness.
Civil War

21. Hyperbole:
Overstatement; saying more than what is true for the sake of emphasis.

22. Examples: “I called you a million times!”
“Mom, I don’t have anything to wear to school!”
“I laughed my head off.”

23. Understatement:
Makes less of something; uses language that “draws the listener in” because it cleverly “distorts” in its own way and makes us see an absurdity more clearly.

24. Example:
The winner of the basketball slam dunk competition can jump a little.
Families out of work and without a paycheck can experience some economic discomfort.
Michael Jordan is a pretty good athlete.

25. Giving human characteristics to
Personification:
Giving human characteristics to
non-human things.

26. Examples: Don’t allow dishonesty to sneak up on you!
Crime can dress up in a number of disguises when it is at work.

27. Examples in Lord of the Flies:
“The breezes that on the lagoon had chased their tales like kittens were finding their way across the platform and into the forest.”