Word Squad

Home
Exercises
Storytelling
Writing
Figures
Tropes
Ethos
Logos
Pathos
Kairos
Archive
About

Figures

Go ahead, drop the towel!
Impress your coworkers with these sexy new protoclichés.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
1
The figure Ariana Grande uses to play coy
Its official name: the accismus. I call it the Oh-you-shouldn’t-have figure.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
1
The addictive figure that sold us all on junk food
Advertisers rely on the paean, a candy-coated, highly addictive war cry. You can use it to stop eating junk!
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
2
To write a speech, write a phrase.
Your audience won’t remember your speech, but they’ll leave with your thought.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
Brain training with an ex-parrot
The synonymia is a figure that can temporarily liberate us from our smartphones.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
2
Magic in the Great Green Room
You will find almost all of rhetoric's power in this one children’s book.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
Meet the Feghoot, a pun-enabled shaggy dog
Tell a story that makes bogs dark and Britannia waive the rules.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
9
Instead of a humblebrag, try an honorflip.
The precarious prevalence of the portmanteau, a device that sends words packing.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
1
That’s just, like, a figure of speech, man.
It’s called, y’know, a parelcon, and it really brings a sentence together.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
2
Raw-Dogging: The idiom that only a Y chromosome could have written.
I mean, would a woman think of raw-dogging as a challenge Or call it “raw-dogging?”
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
3
This Figure Has a Power We Can Measure
If only you and I could pronounce it.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
3
How to verb
In a thorough memeification of a political candidate, Generation Z has declared Kamala Harris “brat.” She’s not just a brat, she’s brat.
 • 
Jay Heinrichs
9
© 2025 Jay Heinrichs
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture