Language Arts Terminology

noun a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase

verb to rearrange the letters of a word or phrase to form a new word or phrase

• An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once.
• I love trying to figure out anagrams of my friends' names for fun.
• Let's play a game where we try to come up with anagrams of random words, it's super fun!
• Finding the solution to the complex problem felt like solving an anagram, requiring careful rearrangement of different elements.

noun a rhetorical device that uses multiple conjunctions in close succession, typically where they are not necessary

• The author's use of polysyndeton in the passage created a sense of rhythm and emphasis.
• The repeated use of 'and' in that sentence is called polysyndeton.
• Yo, that polysyndeton stuff the teacher talked about is like using 'and' a bunch of times in a row.
• Her speech was like a river flowing with polysyndeton, each 'and' connecting the ideas seamlessly.

noun a rhetorical device in which the usual order of words is reversed for emphasis or effect

• The poet used anastrophe to create a sense of emphasis in his verse.
• By switching the word order, anastrophe can make a sentence sound more poetic.
• Anastrophe may seem like a weird grammar rule, but it can actually make your writing more interesting.
• Just as anastrophe flips the order of words, sometimes life throws unexpected twists at us.

noun A word that changes its meaning, and sometimes pronunciation, when it is capitalized

• A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning and pronunciation when it is capitalized.
• I just learned about capitonyms - words that have different meanings depending on capitalization.
• Capitonyms can be so confusing, like 'polish' and 'Polish'.
• The concept of capitonyms is like a language puzzle waiting to be solved.