In the realm of rhetoric, language is not just a tool for communication, but a palette of artistic techniques that can paint emotions, convey meanings and spark thoughts. One such technique that adds a touch of flair to language is the rhetorical device known as the “hyperbaton”. Imagine taking the words of a sentence, shuffling them like a deck of cards, and then dealing them out in a slightly unexpected order. That’s what the hyperbaton does. A rearrangement of words or ideas that gives sentences a unique rhythm and emphasises certain elements to create an impact beyond the ordinary.ry.
Photo by Artur Tumasjan on Unsplash
“Strong in the Force, you are.” — Yoda in “Star Wars”
This is particularly interesting in the case of English. It’s like an unspoken rule that people don’t learn, but get used to. Of course, such rules (it is actually a rule of “correct” speech) are learned by non-native English speakers. For an English speaker, however, the hyperbaton would be like a natural instinct. If you asked them why they put the adjective there, they might say, “Well, just because”.
Personally, as a child I always felt lost trying to understand poetry in English. The placement of the words and the unorthodox structure of the sentences made my head spin. Perhaps it is because Shakespeare (when it comes to poetry I only knew him) is also quite difficult to understand. I usually gave up reading the rest sooner than I thought. I am well aware that the use of the hyperbaton is widespread in my language too. It must be in the nature of poetry to put a new way of thinking and feeling into words.
So I gave it another try, but this time with a different written medium, like an old book text or novels (not the world classics) written and published in the last few decades. As expected, I chose some of my favourite books to begin with. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s books (well, they are world classics too, but you know) would be a good start, as he was also a linguist and used hyperbaton quite often. Also, the books contained poems of various lengths and patterns.
Now I will let you guess if I was good at understanding hyperbaton by quoting from Mark Forsyth’s book “The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase”
Photo by Akshaye Sikand on Unsplash
Hyperbaton is when you put words in an odd order, which is very, very difficult to do in English. Given that almost everything else in the English language is slapdash, happy-go-lucky, care-may-the-Devil, word order is surprisingly strict. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien wrote his first story aged seven. It was about a “green great dragon.” He showed it to his mother who told him that you absolutely couldn’t have a green great dragon, and that it had to be a great green one instead. Tolkien was so disheartened that he never wrote another story for years.
The reason for Tolkien’s mistake, since you ask, is that adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out. And as size comes before colour, green great dragons can’t exist.
I disagree with Mark’s last sentence, in the case of the existence of the monster called the “Great Dragon” among the other “Lesser Dragons”. What if the Great Dragon was green? Then it would have been a green Great Dragon.
In the end, every language has its own rules, whether we learn them later or have them in us naturally. Whether they make sense or not, they are the spice of writing, reading and storytelling. To be honest, I sometimes struggle to get my sentences in order, but when I do, it adds a delicious layer to the narrative. But I am also a lover of offbeat phrases. Well, the magic and confusion of literature almost always surprises me, that’s for sure.
Since “Hyperbaton” is a “plot” method of narrative techniques (or literary devices), other methods in these articles may be of interest to you:
Chekhov’s Gun and Foreshadowing, as “plot” method of the literary techniques:
Verisimilitude, as “setting” method of the literary techniques:
The Fourth Wall, as “perspective” method of the literary techniques:
Rhetorics, as “style” method of the literary techniques:
Red Herring, as “plot” method of the literary techniques:
Monomyth, as “plot” method of the literary techniques:
Comments