The figure Ariana Grande uses to play coy

Its official name: the accismus. I call it the Oh-you-shouldn’t-have figure.

Ariana Grande isn’t just a good witch; she’s a great witch. That tiny woman sings like an angel—an avenging angel when she wants to. In this monologue for Saturday Night Live, she denies that she’ll make her speech about her. Fast forward to 1:30: “I’m not going to sing” …she sings.

Grande grandly performs one of my favorite figures of irony. Just to make sure you’re not too entertained, here’s some good-for-you rhetoric 101.

Lesson No. 1

Irony is a trope. All tropes play pretend. Irony (from the Greek, meaning “sharp dullness”) pretends to represent one thing while meaning the opposite. Saying you’re not going to sing even while you’re singing is ironic, though hardly subtle. In another SNL sketch, Kristen Wiig plays a society host who begs her guests not to make her sing. Another accismus.

Lesson No. 2

There are two kinds of figures, or schema as the ancients called them. A scheme, quoth the Oxford English Dictionary, is “the plan or design of an undertaking or a literary work, etc.” As a verb, to scheme means “to resort to contrivance.” Beautifully said! Rhetoric is all about resorting to contrivance, which is how it got its shady reputation. Over the next few days, I’ll try to use that phrase as often as possible while stroking my absent moustache. I may have to resort to contrivance.

Lesson No. 3

The accismus is a figure of thought, a means of argument or a way to change the mood or trustworthiness of a sentence. I’ll show off more thought figures in future posts.

Lesson No. 4

A figure of speech, on the other hand, uses unusual words or patterns. Shakespeare had to memorize hundreds of speech figures at the Stratford Grammar School. (I told you this stuff was good for you!) In Richard II, he uses a crisscross figure

I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.

This is called either a chiasmus or antimetabole, depending on how nerdy you are.

Back to the accismus and to irony in general. While you might think of irony as a sophisticated form of snark, you can also use the trope to be polite. Miss Manners considers irony essential to party decorum.

“You must pretend that you invite people because you want to celebrate important occasions with them, and you must seem pleasantly surprised when they give you something."

If you’re both cheap and greedy, then the accismus is the figure for you. And if someone invites you to karaoke, say you won’t sing. In my case, I’ll mean it.