English Lexical Terms

Letter F

Figure Of Speech — The Lexical Term: “Figure Or Speech” is used to mean the same thing as the term “Expression” — when that phrase is used colloquially. When a person describes something as a “Figure Of Speech” it is usually done-so because that person said some phrase which caused confusion or mis-understanding with another person.
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So when a person says: “Oh, it’s just a figure of speech…”
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What that means is: “The phrase that I used has a different meaning than the actual words in their literal interpretation.”
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Whenever someone says this, they should follow up with an explanation of what they meant… “When I said that you look ‘as happy as a pig in mud’ — I wasn’t calling you a ‘Pig’. It’s just a figure of speech to say that someone is very very happy… Like a pig… in mud.” 😉

- - Blog Post — coming soon!
  - Video Lesson — coming soon!
  - See Also: Expression

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