I did it. After months of anticipation, it finally happened. This past Sunday night, I watched Sharknado.
Most of you are probably familiar with Sharknado, but if you're not, get out from under that rock and go look it up on Wikipedia. It's a SyFy original movie, and the only really important thing you need to know is that a guy chainsaws a shark in half. From the inside. It's amazing. It's probably the greatest made-for-TV movie that I've ever seen in my life, and I'm not using that much hyperbole.
What's hyperbole, you ask? Great question.
What Is Hyperbole?
When you exaggerate to make a point or to create a certain emotion, but are not meant to be taken seriously, it's called hyperbole.
Calling Sharknado a great movie is definitely hyperbole. It's a terrible movie. It stars Tara Reid, for Pete's sake. But it is endlessly entertaining to watch in a group while snarking at the TV the whole time.
The most common type of hyperbole that you might encounter on a regular basis is the misuse of “literally” that pervades American English. As most of you are probably aware, the word “literally” means “actually”, so if you say that it's so cold out that your nose is literally frozen, either you're about to lose your nose to frostbite, or you're using hyperbole. Odds are good that your nose is going to be just fine, and you're just exercising your flair for the dramatic.
What Is Adynaton?
When hyperbole gets really out of hand, and is implemented to indicate something that is completely impossible, that's called an adynaton (a-DINE-a-tawn).
One of the most common adynata (plural of adynaton) in the English language is the phrase “when pigs fly”. Clearly, pigs are not aerial creatures, so if something is indicated to happen when pigs fly, the speaker means that it's never going to happen.
This can also be used for comedic effect, like a character presented with an unpleasant scenario saying that they'd rather move to Cleveland, or get stuck in an elevator with William Shatner.
Hyperbole and Adynata In Fiction
Hyperbole and adynata can be used to further develop a character's personality, depending on the type of hyperbole and degree of hyperbole used, and they can also be used to provide external context for scenarios occurring in the world of the story.
Readers might consider a sunny spring day to be a beautiful and desirable thing, but if you're writing from the perspective of a typical vampire (as opposed to a Twilight vampire) who withers in the daylight, you might throw in some hyperbole or adynata to emphasize how much they loathe that afternoon sun.
What's one of your favorite adynata (e.g. when pigs fly)?
PRACTICE
Spend fifteen minutes writing about the end of daylight savings time, using hyperbole and adynata as much as you can. Post your practice in the comments, and be sure to review your fellow writers' work.
One thing we need to keep in mind: choose your comparisons with care. Your readers should have some idea of what you’re talking about or it falls flat. If I said, “There were as many blackbirds in our trees as Conquest has carraganas, what would that tell you? If you knew, as I do, that Conquest boasts itself as “the Carragana Capital of Canada” it would say a lot more.
I can’t imagine what would be wrong with moving to Cleveland — it’s not bankrupt like Detroit, after all — or being stuck in an elevator with William Shatner. (I know that he was born in Canada so we have something in common, even.) So your points are both lost on me.
But the use of metaphors and exaggeration is very valid.
I agree, moving to Cleveland is neither impossible (adynata) nor exaggerated (hyperbole). Context is very important and knowing your audience (your reader) is the key to making either of these literary devices work well and be understood. One of my favorite adynata is “until the rivers run dry”. You can often find a lot of both devices in poetry and songs, in particular love songs. And what to make of the song, “High Hopes” where everyone thinks the ant can’t move a rubber tree plant. Would that qualify?
All good points, Christine and Jay.
I like the one about the ant crawling up the elephant’s hind leg with sex on its mind.
Loved reading the meaning of these Greek words and the examples used. Your post, Liz, reminded me “How the Greek Language Fertilized the Universal Word” as Anna Tziropoulou Eustathiou writes in her book Greek Word. All
best!
So at 5:00 in the afternoon, or evening, as the case is now that it is truly the end of long days for 2013, I divert my daughter’s glance out the kitchen window. She is 13, so this is, for all PSA purposes, a huge feat of brilliance on my part. How do I compete with Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, and the like? But she is not the typical 8th grader. She is interested. Call it being the last of the pecking order of six children. Anything I say to invoke a ‘taking in of the moment’ is considered a treasure to her. She is watching birds fly from the nest, one after another, like eager eagles. With 3 kids left, the nest is half-empty, or half full, if you’re an optimist.
The sun rays through our Japanese Red Maple, as flames filtered through fire. The red is vivid, like crimson. Some leaves are subdued, like the lesser flames of a campfire, almost like the wood that grounds it. As the old cliché says, “it is darkest before dawn,’ I notice that lately, conversely, sunsets seem to be brighter just before dark. The highlights are the perimeter of the tree, a cape fanning the temper of the day. Bea and I planted this tree, nine years ago, as merely a sapling, Both Bea and the tree. I have heard that Japanese Red Maples’ have a shelf life of 20 or so years. This one has yet to reach mid-life. It reaches towards us through the kitchen window, now. Showing off the awards of artistry of the season. It’s extroverted period, the Fall.
“Bea, look at our tree in the sun. Isn’t it beautiful?” I’m thinking I’d like to take a picture, but am busy fixing white bean chili before swim practice and piano lessons. Bea, (yes, the 13 year old), says, “Do you mind if I take a picture of it with your IPhone?” She sits within me, still.
An hour later we are at piano, and the mountain driveway is dark. Pitch. My other daughter K and I fumble with the flashlight app on my phone. “K” says, “It is insane how dark it is now. Crazy dark.” It’s insanity being that we can’t see the leaves for the trees. The years are long, but the days are short.
“A cape fanning the temper of the day” perfect imagery.
Thanks, Cat. I actually felt the imagery as I wrote it. You never know what will come from the pen, and that’s one cool thing about writing. I still don’t quite get, hyperbole.
I like “The sun rays through our Japanese Red Maple . . . ” I think this is the first time I’ve encountered “rays” as a verb.
Beautiful descriptive writing!
Thanks John. It was fun. Fall is beautiful, to the point that it is almost painful to me. Why can’t the leaves stay that way for just a while longer?
I know what you mean — down here in my part of the US, it lasts about a week, if that. And it is beautiful and revitalizing in its own way.
Swooning like a lovestruck teen, I would keel over dead if stuck in an elevator with William Shatner. However sucking a rotten egg seems infinitely better than switching from Daylight Savings to Standard time.
Short, but sweet. Is that hyperbole? I think you nailed it with the rotten egg picture.
Thank you. “Keel over dead” I think is adynaton. “Eggs” Hyperbole, but not really sure. I just loved the sound of hyprebole and adynaton. I should try to use them in a paragraph.
What I hate worse is the switching back from Standard time to Daylight Savings time in the spring — especially if that Saturday night was a late one. I get a case of jet-lag without ever leavin’ th’ farm!
“jet lag w/o leaving the farm.” LOL Amen to that. The glory of being retired is that I can sleep in, but as a former teacher whose student’s acted squirrelly insane after springing forward, I feel for all the school kids and working people.
Absolutely — I remember how DST affected me as a student and then a worker — and I too enjoy the retiree role these days!
So I did it again this year — the end of Daylight Saving Time utterly escaped my attention, abetted by the fact that I didn’t even turn on my computer Sunday morning and literally flew out the door thinking I was late.
There was one car on the parking lot when I got there, the minister’s Jeep. This anomaly surprised me for a few seconds — but then I thought, it must be camp-out weekend. And since I enjoy large-group camp-outs every bit as much as Monday morning rush hour, I was undisturbed.
Ay, the rub came when I walked into the classroom for Adult Forum and not. one. single. person was there! The pass-around mics, which let everybody be heard when they’re sharing their wisdom, where nowhere in sight. Not a single folding chair. Not even the VCR player was in evidence! I’m like, c’mahhhn, they can’t have all gone camp–
And that’s when the dime dropped. I closed my eyes and reached for my cell-phone, which I’d stuffed in its holster that morning without even checking to see if it was turned on or not.
It was the absolutely ungodly hour of 8:30 in the everlastin’ mornin’!
I headed for the fellowship hall, hoping that the vital, life-giving and salvific COFFEE was on.
And that’s when the dime dropped. Is that hyperbole, or adynaton? Either way, I like it. I can see myself in this epiphany. Also, life-giving and salvific COFFEE woke me up too.
Hmmmm, well I don’t think it’s either one actually, but rather an analogy to a coin finally dropping within a vending machine, which can be anything but instantaneous. An epiphany, most certainly.
Thanks!
Nice piece Since hyperbole is exaggeration, I am assuming the salvific coffee, flew out the door and ungodly hour are hyperbole. All gave us a much better visual of your activities and feelings. The dime dropping I think is an adynaton. Not that it couldn’t be dropped, but because we know it wasn’t literally dropped……Just thinking out lout here. The more I explore Liz’s article more possibilities keep popping in my head.
……Actually I don’t think the dime dropping fits the definition of an adynaton because it’s not really an exaggeration, it’s an analogy to, like, a coin dropping into a vending machine — a significant amount of time can pass after the coin leaves your fingers and enters the slot, until it finally drops to the whatever-it-is that makes the machine dispense the product — it’s not instantaneous, and if you’re in a hurry it can seem forever. That was my thinking when I wrote it anyway. Like “the lights finally came on” kind of thing.
But you’re right on about salvific, flew out the door, and the coffee.
Thanks for reading, cat!
This has been a great topic. I intend to do more research on it and slap more hyperbole and adynaton in my NaNo project.
Good!
Glad to visit your blog. Thanks for this great post that you share to us.
Jane sat still by her window to view the scenery outside her flat and thinking aloud,she said i know that the end of daylight savings time will take away the sorrow i have forever longed for the night to unburden off me. For her this switch in timing will make it easier for her to allay her fears each passing night rather than waiting for the night like an infertile waiting for childbirth.
Better late than never… I’ve been bogged down with NaNoWriMo and haven’t gotten back before now, but I want to say I really enjoyed this post, Joe & Liz. I plan to refer to this article in an upcoming blog post and add some more examples that I’ve dreamed up meanwhile.