Hendiadys

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Technical Hendiadys (Template:IPAc-en) is a figure of speech used for emphasis—"The substitution of a conjunction for a subordination". The basic idea is to use two words linked by the conjunction "and" instead of the one modifying the other.

Hendiadys in English is also known as two for one and figure of twins. Although the underlying phrase is Template:Langx, the only other forms occasionally found in English are hendiaduo and hendiaduous, the latter of which the 17th-century English Biblical commentator Matthew Poole used in his commentary on Template:Bibleverse, Template:Bibleverse, and Template:Bibleverse.<ref>Matthew Poole's Commentaries on Genesis 3, Proverbs 1, and Isaiah 19, accessed 14 November 2015</ref>

Use and effect

Template:Original research section The typical result of a hendiadys is to transform a noun-plus-adjective into two nouns joined by a conjunction. For example, sound and fury from the Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow speech in Macbeth seems to offer a more striking image than "furious sound". In this example, as is typically the case, the subordinate idea initially present in the adjective is transformed into a noun in its own right.

Another example is Dieu et mon droit, present in the coat of arms of the United Kingdom. Hendiadys is most effective in English when the adjectival and nominal forms of the word are identical. Thus "the cold wind went down the hall" becomes the cold and the wind went down the hall. Likewise, he came despite rain and weather instead of "he came despite the rainy weather".

Two verbs (as in the case of a catenative verb) can be so joined: come and get it (also come get it in American English) and Fowler says that try and... for "try to..." is a "true example" of hendiadys.<ref>page 245 entry hendiadys in Template:Cite book</ref> The etymology of try and... is explained in a "Usage Note" in the online Merriam Webster Dictionary.<ref>Merriam Webster Dictionary Words at Play "We're Going to Explain the Deal with 'Try And' and 'Try To'"</ref>

The conjunction may be elided (parataxis): This coffee is nice and hot can become This is nice hot coffee; in both cases one is saying that the coffee is hot to a nice degree, not that the coffee itself would be nice even if cold.

When hendiadys fails in its effects, it can sound merely redundant. For example, the Latin grade cum amicitia atque pace, literally with friendship and peace, which initially contained hendiadys for emphasis, is often translated instead as "with peaceful friendship", which lacks hendiadys, and can therefore be interpreted to lack the same emphasis as the original phrase.

In classical and Biblical literature

Hendiadys is often used in Latin poetry. There are many examples in Virgil's Aeneid, e.g., Book 1, line 54: vinclis et carcere, literally translated as "with chains and prison", but meaning "with prison chains".

In the Hebrew Bible, in Exodus 15:4, the Template:Langx means "the chariots of Pharaoh's army".<ref>page 121 in Template:Cite book</ref>

In Template:Bibleverse, the Hebrew says Template:Lang "alien and resident", but the phrase means a "resident alien".Template:Citation needed

In Lamentations 2:9, the Hebrew says Template:Lang "ruined and broken", but the phrase means "destroyed completely" or "smashed to bits".

In Isaiah 4:5, the phrase translated "cloud by day and smoke" is sometimes interpreted as a hendiadys meaning "a cloud of smoke by day".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In Mark 11:24, Template:Langx, means "whatever you ask in prayer".<ref>Zerwick, Maximilian, Joseph Smith (transl). Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples. Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici. Rome, 1963. §460</ref>

William Shakespeare uses hendiadys throughout his canon, most notably in Hamlet. When cautioning his sister Ophelia, Laertes makes use of this rhetorical trope repeatedly with "safety and health" (1.3.20), "voice and yielding" (1.3.22), and "morn and liquid dew" (1.3.41). Perhaps the most famous use of hendiadys in the play is Hamlet's own "Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I” (2.2.538).

As linguistic terminology in describing Turkic languages

Hendiadys is the preferred terminology used to describe some types of compounding in Turkic linguistics. Johanson, in his discussion of Turkic compounding, considers compounds of synonymous components to be hendiadys:

The asyndetic type noun + noun is also used in coordinative compounds, so-called twin words or binomes. In this case, two parallel nouns with similar meanings form a synonym compound, hendiadys, ... or a hyponym compound to express a higher concept ...<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

Template:Wiktionary Hendiadys is different from these:

• Hendiatris, one through three does not have a subordination of parts
• Irreversible binomial, word pairs of collocation in which the order of the words cannot be reversed
• Litotes, a form of understatement for emphasis
• Merism, a figure of speech in which a whole is indicated by a brief enumeration of parts
• Legal doublets, which are the conjoining of two synonymous words
• Antiptosis

References

Further reading

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite journal Reprinted in George T. Wright, Hearing the Measures: Shakespearean and Other Inflections (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001).
• Template:Cite book