220326 What I learned in my studies this morning 2

Tough to care about,
Today blehs without meaning.

Need to do better.

Daily Stoic:

Not in the mood to do anything today.  Meditating isn't working.  Can't think straight or concentrate.  Perhaps I ought to put this off until later.

Today's Meditation:

Today's Music:

12 Notations pour piano, 1 Fantasque - Modere by Pierre Boulez

(#1 is from 0:00 to 0:57, though the whole thing is worth listening to.  Sounds like the precursor to horror movie scores.)

Daily Shakespeare:

Henry VIII, Act 3 Scene 1

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From Ward Farnsworth, Classical English Rhetoric, part 3. Dramatic Devices:

14. Leaving out words: Aposiopesis (pp. 182-92)

Technical term: 

Aposiopesis (ap-o-sigh-o-pee-sis) is breaking off a sentence and leaving it unfinished. 

Uses:

Aposiopesis often has effects similar to præteritio:

» it can create interest, suspense, and drama, drawing the reader / listener in to mentally fill in the gaps, making them part of the exposition and enhancing the impact of the unsaid thought;

» to accomplish præteritio;

» to imitate discretion;

» to leave it to the imagination;

» to give the impression that the speaker is trying to find the appropriate word or phrase, to digress, or to stop themselves before saying something they shouldn't. 

Patterns and Examples 

— A loss for words... 

— Incapacity.... 

— Thinking better of it... 

— Why proceed? 

— To goad the audience... (into pleading for that unsaid to be said) 

— To punctuate an utterance

—— Or else

— As a narrative device (as with præteritio, a narrator getting ahead of themselves or for letting another finish the idea) 

— Indicating confusion 

Aside: in my youth I knew a person a bubble off plumb. They would regularly lose their train of thought, an daily occurrence. 

Once, they realized they had done so and, in a most delicious unintended bit of aposiopesis, said, "I've lost my train........" it having already left the station, perhaps never to return.

Conclusion: 

Like præteritio, aposiopesis let's the audience do the work; finishing the sentence, filling in the dirty detail, completing the insult or innuendo.