Antimetabole

In rhetoric, antimetabole (/æntɪməˈtæbəliː/ AN-ti-mə-TAB-ə-lee) is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed order; for example, "I know what I like, and I like what I know". It is related to, and sometimes considered a special case of, chiasmus. Antimetabole has an ABBA configuration as seen in the following example from Mark 2:27: “the sabbath [A] was made for humankind [B], and not humankind [B] for the sabbath [A].” [1]

An antimetabole is also said to be a little too predictive because it is easy to reverse the key term, but it can pose questions that one usually would not think of if the phrase were just asked or said the initial way.[2]

Examples

• "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno" ("One for all, all for one")
• "Eat to live, not live to eat." Attributed to Socrates
• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." — John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
• "When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
• "With my mind on my money and my money on my mind." — Attributed to Snoop Dogg in the song "Gin and Juice"
• "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, Party always finds you!" — Yakov Smirnoff
• "The great object of [Hamlet's] life is defeated by continually resolving to do, yet doing nothing but resolve." — Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Shakespeare's Hamlet
• "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us." — Malcolm X, Malcolm X
• "He was just the man for such a place, and it was just the place for such a man." — Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass[3]

Etymology

It is derived from the Greek ἀντιμεταβολή from ἀντί (antí), "against, opposite" and μεταβολή (metabolē), "turning about, change".

See also

• Chiasmus
• Figure of speech
• Rhetoric
• Russian reversal
• Symploce

References

• Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.

1. James L. Resseguie, Narrative Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 59; Resseguie, "A Glossary of New Testament Narrative Criticism with Illustrations," in Religions, 10 (3: 217),8-9.
2. Fahnestock, Jeanne (1999). Rhetorical Figures in Science. Oxford University Press. pp. 123–134.
3. Douglass, Frederick (1995). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc. p. 13. ISBN 0-486-28499-9.

External links

• Audio illustrations of antimetabole
• Examples in U.S.A politics.
• NPR story
• Antimetabole detector online