Sunday, June 16, 2013

OLW144 Show Us Your Colors and a Free Lesson in Rhetoric

Cheryl's red-white-and-blue patriotic challenge warmed the cockles of my military-dependent-spouse heart. While I often joke that the happiest day of my life was the day George retired after 20 years of service to the United States Air Force (I'm only partly joking), I value and treasure those 20 years as a dependent spouse of active duty military. I love my country and am proud of George's service.

There were times when it really sucked, though. If you've not been in a military family, THIS SONG will help explain some of the conflicting emotions military families go through each and every day.

Yes, that flag is so much more than stripes and stars.

So here's my card for OLW144, which uses stamps from the wonderfully patriotic set from Dare 2 B Artzy called Our Hero, which was designed for Operation Write Home.





Now, keep reading only if you're into really useless information. I'm going to give you some because I'm just full of it.

Today's lesson is from Classical Rhetoric 101, where poor, innocent students are made to memorize all sorts of Greek and Latin terms for all sorts of obscure figures of speech...terms like litotes, metonymy, and the better-known hyperbole.

My personal favorite, however, is chiasmus. Shakespeare used it in Macbeth when he wrote, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." President Kennedy used it when he said, "...[A]sk not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." And Johnson & Johnson used it when they sang, "I am stuck on Band-Aid brand 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me!" Chiasmus is a crossing or reversal of terms.

My card today has a chiastic structure in which I reversed the colors...a chiasmus of color, if you will. The images are blue and red, while the sentiment underneath is red and blue. Isn't that cool?

And that's why I have a Master's degree in English...so I can share interesting little tidbits of useless knowledge with you.

You're welcome.

Supplies
stamps: Dare 2 Be Artzy Our Hero
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey
accessories: tiny rhinestones


15 comments:

  1. Very cool card ... and thank you for the lesson! Anita :)

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  2. Big smiles here LOL Love your little snippets of info and your card is fun too, Gay x

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  3. Your chiasmus depiction and explanation are just what I needed at this time of day. I try to learn something new every day. I was starting to think I was going to have to look up something on Wikipedia. ;-) Thanks. Interesting, too. I'm going to give my myself credit for learning two things today because I now have to look up its pronunciation. Oh, nice card, too!

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  4. Thanks so much for sharing!!! I love the info!!!! Very cool card!

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  5. CAS is hard to do well, but you have it "mastered" and provide such great examples for the rest of us to follow. I love all the other "snippets" you provide, useless or otherwise.

    I do have a question though. How is it you break "the rules" and still make it work? On today's card and on the one you posted for "Stamping Snit", you only used TWO focal images and a sentiment.
    Odd numbers are always better than even numbers, I'd heard that long before I read it on your blog. Unless of course the images themselves are clearly designed as a pair; like a "his and hers" type thing for a wedding card.

    I am only half serious about this....I have been stamping over 10 years, but have not come CLOSE to being able to produce such well balanced CAS cards as you do. Both cards I mention look awesome and if wasn't for the fact that I stamp and learned that "rule" I would not look at either card and say something was missing or that they looked out of balance.

    Is there some other design "rule" at work here that I am missing? I think on today's card, the chiasmus with the color switching makes it work, even numbers or not. But the tiny butterflies? It looks great....but WHY do you think it works with even numbers of images? Just curious.

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  6. Good question, Mary! I'll think on it and post a detailed answer soon. But the short answer is that there are lots of other design concepts that can create harmony and balance on a card other than visual triangles, though the triangles are the easiest way to create balance and extremely convenient for cards, IMHO.

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  7. Thanks for the tidbit of information! You should know those little bits keep me coming back for more!

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  8. I'm not an AF wife, but I am an AF brat. We spent the first part of my life moving often, and naturally, I thought everybody did that! New schools, new friends, new homes were the norm for me, and I'm sure you know all about that. Your card is amazing. I know my dad would love it. He's got an Honors Flight coming up soon, and I'm so proud of him. Seriously great card. The chiastic nature of your design provides wonderful balance to the card. It's quite pleasing to look at. Have a good week. Bev

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  9. Oh! I love it when I learn new things! Keep sharing your interesting tidbits of knowledge along with your AMAZIN' cards!

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  10. Susan, What a cute patriotic card. I really like the sentiment and using two colors really makes that sentiment pop! Fun English lesson too.

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  11. So glad that I'm not the only one that knows about chiastic structure! I learned about it in Beth Moore's Bible study on Esther... So glad that one of the useless bits of information I remember is actually useful in card-making!

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  12. chiasmus...NOW I know the difference between a Bachelor's English Major and a Master's English Major! But we both qualify to belong to Garrison Keillor's Professional Organization of English Majors (POEM for short). I have only a Bachelor's in stamping too.

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  13. Awseome, I love useless information! Tell me more.

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  14. Wow! I did not know that chiasmus is used in routine, spoken English language! I have learnt it as a 'cytogenetics' term signifying the points where two chromosomes in a cell nucleus cross over each other :-))

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  15. I had learnt the term 'chiasma' (plural 'chiasmata') in 'cytogenetics', representing the points of crossing over of two chromosomes in a cell nucleus. Did not know that the word is used in spoken English! Thanks for the 'useful' info!

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!