more royal vocab

royal vocab

active voice

active voice

the subject of the sentence performs the action. This is a more direct and preferred style of writing in most cases.

passive voice

when the subject of the sentence receives the action. It’s often overused, resulting in lifeless writing.

Anecdote

A brief recounting of a relevant episode. Anecdotes are often inserted into fictional or non fictional texts as a way of developing a point or injecting humor.

Antecedent

The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun.

colloquial

ordinary or familiar type of conversation

colloquialism

a common or familiar type of saying, similar to an adage or an aphorism

denotation

the literal, explicit meaning of a word, without its connotations

jargon

the diction used by a group which practices a similar profession or activity.

vernacular

language or dialect of a particular country, everyday speech

didactic

a term used to describe fiction, nonfiction or poetry that teaches a specific lesson/moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking

adage

a folk saying with a lesson, similar to aphorism and colloquialism

ellipsis

the deliberate omission of a word or phrase from prose done for effect by the author

euphemism

a more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts. sometimes they are used for political correctness. sometimes used to exaggerate correctness to add humor.

analogy

a comparison of one pair of variables to a parallel set of variables.

hyperbole

exaggeration

idiom

a common, often used expression that doesn’t make sense if you take it literally.

metonymy

replacing an actual word/idea with a related word or concept

synecdoche

a kind of metonymy when a whole is represented by naming on of its parts or vice versa

invective

a long, emotionally violent, attack using strong, abusive language

dramatic irony

when the audience of a drama, play, movie, etc. knows something that the character doesn’t and would be surprised to find out

juxtaposition

placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison

motif

a recurring idea in a piece of literature

oxymoron

when apparently contradictory terms are grouped together and suggest a paradox

paradox

a seemingly contradictory situation which is actually true.

parallelism

sentence construction which places equal grammatical constructions near each other or repeats identical grammatical patterns

alliteration

repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words

assonance

the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds

consonance

the repetition of the same consonant sound at the end of words or within words.

onomatopoeia

the use of a word which imitates or suggests the sound that the thing makes.

internal rhyme

when a line of poetry contains a rhyme within a single line

end rhyme

when the last word of 2 different lines of poetry rhyme

meter

a regular pattern to the syllables in lines of poetry

free verse

poetry that doesn’t have much meter or rhyme

polysyndeton

when a writer creates a list of items which are all separated by conjunctions

pun

when a word that has 2 or more meanings is used in a humorous way

rhetoric

the art of effective communication

appositive

a word or group of words placed beside a noun or noun substitute to supplement its meaning

compound sentence

contains at least 2 independent clauses but no dependent clauses

complex sentence

contains only one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

cumulative sentence

also called a loose sentence; when the writer begins with an independent clause, then adds subordinate elements; opposite construction is called a periodic sentence

style

the choices in diction, tone, and syntax that a writer makes.

understatement

the ironic minimizing of fact, understatement presents something as less significant than it is.

ethos

being convinced by the credibility of the author

pathos

means persuading by appealing to the reader’s emotions

logos

means persuading by the use of reasoning

fallacy

an attractive but unreliable piece of reasoning

valid argument

an argument is valid if the conclusion logically follows from the premises