Daniel Swanson

Daniel Swanson wins the prize this week. Good Job!

“I would hardly have been worth much myself if I had only one purpose in
life.”

Galbert de Garsenc to Blaise his son.
Guy Gavriel Kay. A Song for Arbonne.

Three Prizes:

This post is a little late. I apologize. I have been deliberating long and hard. In the end I have to give three prizes this week. Here's how it goes.

Robert Mouser came up with another good one-- probably the most well rounded of the commonplaces, and certainly fetching and clever. Here it is:

"If my calculations are correct then, SLINKY + ESCULATOR = EVERLASTING FUN"

Katherine Cumbee introduced me to one of the best/ worst puns I've ever heard. Although it isn't new, it straddles two languages and includes the bottom layer... ahem.

"Semper ubi, sub ubi."

Finally, Lydia Smith wins the prize for vocabulary. I actually had to use the dictionary. Mrs. Roise didn't know, nor did most of her family. Here's the cat with the name you'll have to look up.

"I'm naming my cat Sycophant: first she gets you to pet her, then she
asks for food"

Robert Mouser

wins the prize for the first 3 weeks of the commonplace contest.

Week 1: "Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker."

Week 2: "A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory."

Week 3: "To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."

Robert's commonplaces are quite good, but they are not so good that other students should give up.

The Commonplace

The commonplace has a diverse and multifaceted history. In one setting it is just one of a number of figures of speech. In another it is an element of the particular "progymnasmata" of "amplification" in the complexity of advanced rhetorical theory. In another setting, it is an excuse for collecting thoughts, facts, moral principles, and other happenings in a book (as in a book of commonplaces). For my online rhetoric class my students are required to collect commonplaces, and submit one a week to a contest. I will then post the class' best of the best, and the world will know the winner. Hence, one of the primary functions of this blog from this point on will be to showcase the commonplaces of my rhetoric students. In a sense, our use is indeed another use than those listed above. We are recording "striking thoughts" for the purpose of noting what works, rhetorically. So, there is your short explanation of what follows.