Literary Forms, Tricks and Games: Terminology. Quiz

Answer: epitaph

The term epitaph is also applied by extension to "anything written as if to be inscribed on a tomb".
An epigram is any inscription suitable for carving on a monument. Later the term was also used for any brief and pithy verse pointing out a moral.
An epistrophe is the ending of a series of lines, phrases, clauses or sentences with the same word or words.
An epithet is an adjective or phrase that is used to express the characteristic of a person or thing. Examples: Ivan the Terrible; Richard the Lionheart.

Answer: chain verse

An echo verse is a verse in which the last word is "partially" echoed. Example:
"If neither being grave nor funny
Will win the maid to matrimony"?
ECHO:"Try money."
An anacoluthon is an abrupt change within a sentence to a second construction inconsistent with the first. This "syntactic error" is
occasionally used as a stylistic trick.
In an acrostic certain letters usually the first in each line form a name, motto or message when read as a sequence.
An example of an acrostic:
"Australia is my country.
Under southern skies so free,
Snakes curl in a hollow log
Treefrogs sing to me.
Roads go on forever
As you drive from east to west.
Lizards bask in desert sands.
Insects are a pest.
Australia is my country." (Suzanne Honour)

Answer: anacoluthon

The normal continuation might have been: ...you will end up in prison, as a drop-out, etc.
Anastrophe is the inversion of the normal syntactic order of words: "To church went she".
Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences or lines.
Epistrophe is similar...but at the end of sentences.

Answer: anaphora

Charade is a kind of riddle in which a word or phrase is divined by guessing and combining its different syllables, each of which is described independently by the giver of the charade.

Answer: broken rhyme

A half rhyme is a rhyme that consists of two words that have only their consonants in common.
"She stopped/ And wept."
Stopgap is a general term for an inferior solution. It could be applied to "inferior" types of rhyme such as the half rhyme.
Bout rimé is the name for a literary game of making verse from a list of rhyming words supplied by another person.

Answer: clerihew

The clerihew got its name after Edmund Clerihew Bentley who is also the author of the poem on Sir Humphrey Davy.
The rondelet is a French form consisting of two rhymes contained in a seven line stanza. Line one is the exact same as the 3rd and 7th line. The rhyme structure is:AbAabbA A being the chorusline.
The syllabic-structure is 4-8-4-8-8-8-4.
A haiku is an unrhymed 17 syllable poem of Japanese origin. It usually has a seasonal reference.
The syllabic structure is 5-7-5.
A limerick is a five line verse with the rhyme scheme of aabba. The syllabic structure is 5-5-3-3-5.
Example:
" There was an old man who, when little
Fell casually into a Kettle.
But, growing too stout,
He could never get out,
So he passed all his life in that Kettle."

Answer: charade

An abecedarian is a poem that has words or verses beginning with successive letters of the alphabet.
"Hungry One"
A baby cries
During energetic fitful gasps he is jostling
Keeping loving mother near,
Over protective.
Quaffing radiates some tenderness
Undoing vast worries
X-tasy
Yes
Zzzzz....

Answer: Conundrum

Calembour is just another word for "pun". (From French.) In itself it does not refer to a riddle or puzzle.
A cryptogram is a piece of writing in code or cypher. The cryptogram is in the first place a secret way of communicating rather than a game.

Answer: anagram

A palindrome is a word, number, sentence or verse that can be read the same backward as forward. Anna. Eve. Reviver. Repaper. Deified. Sex at noon taxes.
A hexagram is a plane figure that has the shape of a six-pointed star.
A pangram tries to contain as many different letters of the alphabet as possible, without any letter being repeated. Classic example is: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".
Good examples of anagrams are:
"Sit not in alebars" for "Total abstainers"; "Enraged" for "Angered"; "Voices rant on" for "Conversation".

Answer: a rhopalic line

A good example of a "one-vowel-sentence" or univocalic line might be:
"Persevere, ye perfect men,
Ever keep the precepts ten." (=Ten Commandments).
A lipogram is a verse that systematically avoids the use of a particular letter. E.g. no s-es, as in these verse:
"Mary had a little lamb,
With fleece a pale white hue,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb kept her in view."
Spoonerisms - after the Revd William Archibald Spooner of New College in Oxford - are unintentional transpositions of letters and mixing-ups of sounds and syllables.
A fictitious epitaph for the Revd Spooner claims that he "thighed in nineteen-dirty". Not unsuitable for a man who had complained to a truant student: "You have hissed my mystery lessons".