Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You

As Dr Grothe explains William Safire introduced the term contrapuntal to describe this reversal of the order of words, using an ABBA form, although there are more elaborate ones. The more common description is chiasmus.

For example Kennedy said: Let us never (A)negotiate out of (B)fear, but let us never (B)fear to (A) negotiate. You can probably remember the more famous Kennedy quote.

Joseph Kennedy also had a quote: 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going.'

The Mark Twain quote: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's ...................


From the TaoTe Ching: Wise men don't need to prove their point, Men who need to prove their point aren't wise.

If you're like me, you will really enjoy this, and learn how to construct your own memorable little quotations.

If you were to find this review helpful, please click yes.

Note: I made some Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews.

Your "helpful" vote is greatly appreciated. Thanks

If you love words and their clever use, you will love this book. Dr. Grothe even has a website for new examples of chiasmus (two or more lines that follow a parallel structure). Here is a fine example of chiasmus.

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge answered one of his critics with the following chiasmus:

"I will concede your general rule that every poet is a fool.
But as your book serves to show it, not every fool is a poet."

I have to repeat the example of one Amazon reviewer, who quoted this line about the Hemingway centennial:

"Only in the case of Hemingway could the century of the writer be more celebrated than the most celebrated writer of this century."

An historical note!

Mormons have claimed to have found chiastic sentence structures in the Book of Mormon (1830), claiming also that chiasmus was unknown in Joseph Smith's day. The truth is that the chiastic structures found in the Bible were well-known to Bible readers--one book containing examples of parallelisms in "Hebrew poetry" was even advertised on the front page of Joseph Smith's hometown of Palmyra New York (Thomas Hartwell Horne, "An Introduction to the Knowledge and Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures").

The other fact is that Joseph Smith probably did not intentionally produce any chiastic sentence structures as he dictated the Book of Mormon to his scribe, who sat behind a curtain unable to see the gold plates.

Chiastic structures are found in the introduction to the Book of Mormon (admittedly written by Joseph Smith, and in his other writings). Joseph Smith was so repetitious that these unintentional structures are occasionally found (Mormons also delete elements that don't fit in their search for things that "Joseph Smith could not have known").

See my review of "Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon." Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon

I am enjoying this book in bits and pieces. If you don't have time for full committment to a novel, this book is easy to read a bit, think about a bit, and go back to later.
And, I have the next two books waiting in the wings for when I finish this one. Plus, I get a new batch via e-mail each week.

It is, as advertized, a book of word play. Some are quite humerous and others clever and ingenious. However the chiastic style begins to wear after awhile. Ruth Smith

For people who like "quotes" and "interesting lines", this book is as good as it gets. Excellent language skills and interesting quotes on this book.

Had a lot of fun reading it.