Calculus

Calculus Calculus Calculus By Maeve Maddox A reader writes, The other day I heard a radio commentator constantly using the phrase in that calculus, something Id never heard before. [The] commentator was using it in a political context, pretty much as a fancy way of saying in that situation; Id be grateful if you could look into it and cover it some time! Calculus is one of those words like parameter and paradigm that have been yanked from their habitual scientific contexts into the general vocabulary by non-scientists to make their utterances sound more profound. In the context of mathematics, the word calculus is usually preceded by differential or integral: integral calculus: a branch of mathematics concerned with the theory and applications (as in the determination of lengths, areas, and volumes and in the solution of differential equations) of integrals and integration. differential calculus: a branch of mathematics concerned chiefly with the study of the rate of change of functions with respect to their variables especially through the use of derivatives and differentials. Calculus is the diminutive of Latin calx, â€Å"stone.† A calculus was a little stone or pebble. The plural, calculi gives us the word calculation because pebbles were used for counting. Calculi were also used as game pieces and for voting. In the context of medicine, calculus is a hard deposit that builds up in the body to produce kidney stones, plaque, and such. The word calculus is now to be found in a variety of contexts: Competition along routes is just one variable in that calculus. (The context is a discussion of the process of airline pricing.) They are casting Ellsworth as an unwilling enabler who will further an agenda even though he might not fully support it. And, in that calculus, his vote for Speaker of the House comes first and foremost. No medical intervention is 100% safe. However vaccines are remarkably  safeIt is risk versus benefit and in that calculus vaccines win. J. C. Watts Endorsing Newt Gingrich is Awful Political Calculus In New Calculus on Smoking, It’s Health Gained vs. Pleasure Lost The political calculus on immigration reform changes day by day, but the moral calculus has not. It seems to me that in each of these examples, situation, calculation, or thinking would serve the context. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Is She a "Lady" or a "Woman"?What is Dative Case?How Many Sentences in a Paragraph?

Definition and Examples of Isocolons in Rhetoric

Definition and Examples of Isocolons in Rhetoric Isocolon  is a  rhetorical term  for a succession of  phrases,  clauses, or  sentences  of approximately equal length and corresponding structure. Plural:  isocolons  or  isocola. An isocolon with three parallel members is known as a  tricolon. A four-part isocolon is a  tetracolon climax. Isocolon is particularly of interest, notes T.V.F. Brogan, because Aristotle mentions it in the  Rhetoric  as the  figure  that produces symmetry and balance in  speech  and, thus, creates  rhythmical  prose  or even measures in verse (Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 2012). Pronunciation   ai-so-CO-lon Etymology From the Greek, of equal members or clauses Examples and Observations Climate is what we expect; weather is what we get.​It takes a licking, but it keeps on ticking!(advertising slogan of Timex watches)Im a Pepper, hes a Pepper, shes a Pepper, were a PepperWouldnt you like to be a Pepper, too? Dr. Pepper!(advertising jingle for Dr. Pepper soft drink)Come then: let us to the task, to the battle, to the toileach to our part, each to our station. Fill the armies, rule the air, pour out the munitions, strangle the U-boats, sweep the mines, plow the land, build the ships, guard the streets, succor the wounded, uplift the downcast, and honor the brave.(Winston Churchill, speech given in Manchester, England, on January 29, 1940)Nothing thats beautiful hides its face. Nothing thats honest hides its name.(Orual in  Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold  by C.S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1956)Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause.(James Joyce,  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1917) An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.(G.K. Chesterton) Effects Created by Isocolon Isocolon... one of the most common and important rhetorical  figures, is the use of successive sentences, clauses, or phrases similar in length and parallel in structure. . . . In some cases of isocolon the structural match may be so complete that the number of  syllables  in each phrase is the same; in the more common case, the parallel clauses just use the same  parts of speech  in the same order. The device can produce pleasing  rhythyms, and the parallel structures it creates may helpfully reinforce a parallel substance in the speakers  claims... An excessive or clumsy use of the device can create too glaring a finish and too strong a sense of calculation.(Ward Farnsworth,  Farnsworths Classical English Rhetoric. David R. Godine, 2011) The Isocolon Habit Historians of  rhetoric  continually puzzle over why the  isocolon  habit so thrilled the Greeks when they first encountered it, why  antithesis  became, for a while, an  oratorical  obsession. Perhaps it allowed them, for the first time, to see their two-sided  arguments.(Richard A. Lanham,  Analyzing Prose, 2nd ed. Continuum, 2003) The Difference Between Isocolon and Parison - Isocolon  is a sequence of  sentences  of equal length, as in Popes Equal your merits! equal is your din! (Dunciad  II, 244), where each sentence is assigned five syllables, iconizing the concept of equal distribution... Parison, also called  membrum, is a sequence of  clauses or phrases  of equal length.(Earl R. Anderson,  A Grammar of Iconism. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1998) - The Tudor  rhetoricians  do not make the distinction between  isocolon  and  parison...The definitions of  parison  by Puttenham and Day make it identical with isocolon. The figure was in great favor among the Elizabethans as is seen from its schematic use not only in  Euphues  but in the work of Lylys imitators.(Sister Miriam Joseph,  Shakespeares Use of the Arts of Language. Columbia Univ. Press, 1947)