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[2] But to proceed, figures of speech fall into two main classes. One is defined as the form of language, while the other is mainly to be sought in the arrangement of words. Both are equally applicable in oratory, but we may style the former rather more grammatical and the latter more rhetorical.1 The former originates from the same sources as errors of language. For every figure of this kind would be an error, if it were accidental and not deliberate.

1 These grammatical figures would not be styled “figures of speech” in English. “Figures of language” would perhaps be more comprehensive, but “figures of speech” is the translation and direct descendant of the original Greek σχήματα λέξεως and has therefore been used throughout.

Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.

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