For those that don’t normally read my long book
reviews, read this one. I promise you,
you’ll enjoy this one, and you’ll get something out of it.
ifferisms:
An Anthology of Aphorisms that begin with the word if
is the full title of the book.
I have as a rule to my reading selections that one
book per year is picked on the subject on either writing or language. As you can tell from my blog, I love reading
and writing. I try to improve on my
writing, and, contrary to some opinion, you don’t become a good writer from
osmosis; you have to learn and work at it.
And so to ensure I’m always learning, I read one book per year to expand
my ability. Such books can be dry. This year I stumbled across this really funbook.
This is a book about the use of aphorisms by using
the conjunction, if. An aphorism, as the author of the book
points out, is “a tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion; an
adage.” For instance, “The heart has
reasons that reason knows not of” is an aphorism by Blaise Pascal. It is to the observation of Dr. Grothe that
“while most aphorisms do not begin with the word if, there are many thousands that do.” Here are some common ones that float general
parlance: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”
Dr. Grothe dubs the aphorism using if as an ifferism, and his book collects some of
the “most compelling quotations” using the “if” structure. It’s a fun read, as you’ll see by the various
quotes I pick out. The book is organized
into subjects of ifferisms, such as Words to Live By, Wit and Wordplay, Age and
the Stages of Life, Gender Dynamics, Sports, Politics, Business, and so
on.
If I were writing the book, I might re-organize it
into rhetorical types of ifferisms—that is, types of communicative devices—and
types of sentence structures that aid in rhythm or emphasis. The rhetorical devices I found—I’ll conflate them
down to four but there are technically many devices— in perusing the book are
analogy, contrast, undercut, and reasoning.
The sentence types are those that delay, those that balance, those that
are front half loaded, and those that are second half loaded.
I’m going to provide
some of Dr. Grothe’s examples to show how powerful a technique an ifferism can
be and hopefully to sharpen your writing by inspiring you to use it.
First let’s look at the
rhetorical devices.
1. Analogy
Analogy in its simplest definition is a comparison
through similarity. Here is a comparison
by Bob Hope between lack of charity and heart trouble:
If you haven’t any charity in your
heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.
-Bob Hope
The movie and drama critic, Rex Reed, used an
ifferism to vividly describe Tennessee Williams’, the great playwright, voice:
If a swamp alligator could talk, it
would sound like Tennessee Williams.
-Rex Reed
And then the great wordsmith H.L. Mencken had a
particular anatomical comparison for the city of Los Angeles:
If Los Angeles is not the one authentic
rectum of civilization, I am no anatomist.
-H. L. Mencken
And Johnny Carson used a remarkable ifferism to
demonstrate the unfairness of life by comparing it to Elvis and his
impersonators.
If life were fair, Elvis would be alive
and all the impersonators would be dead.
-Johnny
Carson
2.
Contrast
Contrast
on the other hand is a comparison to accentuate differences. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a wonderful
contrast between standing and falling for those with values and those without.
If you don’t stand for something,
you will fall for anything.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bill
Safire, another great wordsmith, used the contrast of feelings and thoughts to
compare poor and good communication.
If you want to get in touch with
your feelings,” fine—talk to yourself, we all do. But if you want to communicate with another
thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts.
-William Safire
The
writer Michael Crichton had this contrast of self awareness and without with
this ifferism to show the importance of learning history.
If you don’t know history, then you
don’t know anything. You are a leaf that
doesn’t know it is part of a tree.
-Michael Crichton
The
Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci created one of the most hilarious
ifferisms to contrast New York and Hollywood, though I’m not exactly sure what
he means.
If New York is the Big Apple, then
Hollywood must be the Big Nipple.
-Bernardo Bertolucci
3.
Undercutting
By
undercutting I mean to say that a high ideal or paragon or pride is brought
down to ridicule, derision, or is just simply razzed. Here’s another one poking fun at California,
which seems be a pattern in the book.
If you stay in California, you lose
one point of IQ every year.
-Truman Capote
Dennis
Miller had a great way to make a serious point with this one.
If you’re saying you didn’t know
cigarettes were bad for you, you’re lying through the hole in your trachea.
-Dennis Miller
Ann
Coulter, the political commentator actually titled one of her books using an
undercutting ifferism.
If
Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans
-Ann Coulter, title of book.
And
this form is just made for comedians and undercutting jokes. Here are two by two old comedians.
If you want to see a baseball game
in the worst way—take your wife along.
-Henny Youngman
If it weren’t for pickpockets, I’d have no sex life at all.
-Rodney Dangerfield
4.
Reasoning
And
finally under rhetorical devices I conflate a number of types with
“reasoning.” By reasoning I’m referring
to the process of a logical flow of deduction, induction, or development of
thought. The great ancient Roman,
Cicero, constructed an ifferism to sum up the requirements to a perfect life.
If you have a garden and a library,
you have everything you need.
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
The
football head coach, Vince Lombardi, reduces why you play to this.
If it doesn’t matter who wins or
loses, then why do they keep score?
-Vince Lombardi
I
have no idea who Ruby Manikan was, but she came up with an ifferism for the
ages.
If you educate a man you educate a person,
but if you educate a woman you educate a family.
-Ruby Manikan
The
actress Candice Bergman used an ifferism to deduce why God is not a woman.
If God were a woman, She would have
installed one of those turkey thermometers in our belly buttons. When we were done, the thermometer pops up,
the doctor reaches for a zipper conveniently located below our bikini lines,
and out comes a smiling, fully diapered baby.
-Candice Bergen
And
finally this simple ifferism placed in the jury all the doubt required to judge
OJ Simpson not guilty.
If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.
-Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr.
I
will need to preface the sentence types.
Great writers employee strategies to their sentence syntax. There are times you want to place the
emphasis toward the beginning of a sentence and there are times you want to
place it at the end. There are times you
want the sentence to reflect balance and times you want to have it sort of
appear lopsided or project movement. The
ifferism has a natural schism in its if-then structure, a sort of split that
allows manipulation for these types of sentence structure effects.
1.
Front half weighted sentences:
If
you want to place the emphasis at the beginning part of the sentence, you can build
the verbiage around the “if” half of the sentence. Here’s Martin Luther King Jr. again. Notice how the onus is built up in the first
half, the part where self assessment is being probed.
If a man hasn’t discovered
something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
The
key point of the author, Somerset Maugham, in this ifferism is built by
expanding the details in the first half of the schism.
If you can tell stories, create
characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter
how you write.
-W. Somerset Maugham
Norman
Mailer does something similar here but with more bite.
If a man is not talented enough to
be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands too shaky to
perform operations, he becomes a journalist.
-Norman Mailer
2.
Back half weighted sentences:
A
back half weighted sentence blooms with fullness from the germ implanted in the
first half. One of my favorite writers,
D. H. Lawrence, does it masterfully here:
If only we could have two lives:
the first in which to make one’s mistakes, which seem as if they have to be
made, and the second in which to profit from them.
-D. H. Lawrence
And
Benjamin Franklyn constructs this very dramatic metaphor which blooms into meaning.
If a man empties his purse into his
head, no man can take it away from him.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
-Benjamin Franklyn
And
George Orwell in his Animal Farm constructed this notable gem.
If liberty means anything at all,
it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
-George Orwell
3.
Balance
There
are times when a writer wishes to present the reader with balance, suggesting
harmony and classical unity. The best
sentences that are crafted for balance not only give equal weight to the two
halves, but have either an echoing effect or a mirroring effect.
Napoleon
Hill, writer of personal success books, penned this gem using the echo
effect. Notice how “conquer” and “self”
echo between the two halves of the schism.
If you do not conquer self, you
will be conquered by self.
-Napoleon Hill
And
the Native American writer, Chief Dan George, illustrates how a mirror effect
can create a memorable quote. Here “old”
mirrors “young” and “remember” mirrors “listen.”
If the very old will remember, the
very young will listen.
-Chief Dan George
Finally
if you can combine both echo and mirror effects into one ifferism, then you
really have a powerful statement. Notice
how Oprah Winfrey and novelist Elizabeth Von Armin do both in their respective
ifferisms.
If you look at what you have in
life, you’ll always have more. If you
look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.
-Oprah Winfrey
If you have once thoroughly bored
somebody it is next to impossible to unbore him.
-Elizabeth Von Arnim
4.
Delay
And
finally, still another sentence technique is to create anticipation by delaying
the completeness of meaning. Margret
Thatcher, always the combatant politician, gave this advice in the form of an
ifferism by delaying the punch late in the sentence.
If you are guided by opinion polls,
you are not practicing leadership—you are practicing followship.
-Margaret Thatcher
German
poet, Rilke, gave this sage critique of those who did not find magic in life.
If your daily life seems poor, do
not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its
riches.
-Rainer Marie Rilke
In
one of the most beautifully constructed sentences using an ifferism, Ernest
Hemingway opened his memoir of his life as a young expatriate in Paris with
this perfection of delay.
If you are lucky enough to have
lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life,
it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.
-Ernest Hemingway, from A Moveable Feast
And
finally Jonathan Swift, ever the curmudgeon, used delay to zing the French, who
perhaps were the Californians of his day, in this surprise twist.
If a lump of soot falls into the
soup, and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in, and it will give
the soup a French taste.
-Jonathan Swift
So
can you come up any ifferisms? Here are
a few I’ve thought up.
If
your son cries in the night, and you’re too tired to get up, does he actually
make any noise if you tighten your eyes shut and let the wife get up to take
care of him?
If
crickets crick all night, they will croak by daylight.
If
a Californian dude with a ponytail walks by you with a wink and a surfboard,
he’s looking to board your surf.
If
you forget your wedding anniversary, best to open up the handiest umbrella,
because the shit is most definitely going to hit the fan.
And how about one more I
through together in the form of a poem:
If
you sit on a beach at the foot of the surf
waiting for the morning sun
to
peak over the horizon,
and
if you wait for the rays to find
an
opening through the clouds
silhouetting
morning birds across the sky,
and
just as the waves speak
their
ever humble prayer
and
the light finds its way to your feet,
praise
the Lord, Jesus Christ,
for
morning glory is upon you.
