Taxa named after figures of speech

[benarmstrong]

Today I learned there is an achilid planthopper genus Synecdoche. That got me wondering, how many taxa are named after figures of speech? I could only find a handful off the top of my head, but I realized there are a whole lot more less common ones, so I found a list of them:

https://www.ifioque.com/figures-of-speech/figures-of-speech

And since there are so many of them, I decided I had to have rules for this game:

1. Only figures of speech named on the page linked above.
2. The whole name of the taxon must exactly match the figure of speech.
3. It must be a currently valid scientific name.

The first list consists of only names meeting these criteria.

Figure of speech	Taxon
Anadiplosis	Genus Anadiplosis
Antitheton	Genus Antitheton
Anticlimax	Genus Anticlimax
Antistrophe	Genus Antistrophe
Aporia	Genus Aporia
Asphalia	Genus Asphalia
Auxesis	Genus Auxesis
Cacozelia	Genus Cacozelia
Chiasmus	Genus Chiasmus
Climax	Genus Climax
Coenotes	Genus Coenotes
Dialysis	Genus Dialysis
Diaphora	Genus Diaphora
Diaporesis	Genus Diaporesis
Diastole	Genus Diastole
Dilemma	Genus Dilemma
Enantiosis	Genus Enantiosis
Enargia	Genus Enargia
Epiphora	Genus Epiphora
Epistrophe	Genus Epistrophe
Erotesis	Genus Erotesis
Eulogia	Genus Eulogia
Eustathia	Genus Eustathia
Isocolon	Genus Isocolon
Metalepsis	Subgenus Metalepsis
Paralipsis	Genus Paralipsis
Paramythia	Genus Paramythia
Parecbasis	Genus Parecbasis
Prolepsis	Genus Prolepsis
Sorites	Genus Sorites
Synecdoche	Genus Synecdoche
Symploce	Genus Symploce
Systole	Genus Systole
Tricolon	Subgenus Tricolon
Zeugma	Genus Zeugma

Here’s a short list of honourable mentions that either didn’t match exactly, or the names are invalid. I was not thorough here, only picking a few that were unique, uncommon, or otherwise were too delicious to not share.

Figure of speech	Taxon
Apocalypse	Genus Apocalypsis
Asyndeton	Opisthostoma asyndeton
Cataplexis	Sphaerodactylus copei ssp. cataplexis
Contrarium	Asynapteron contrarium
Emphasis	Bradina emphasis
Enigma	Oedaleonotus enigma
Epiphonema	Pseudagrion epiphonematicum
Epizeuxis	Genus Epizeuxis (invalid)
Exclamatio	Dawkinsia exclamatio
Exemplum	Asindulum exemplum
Metabasis	Abraxas metabasis
Mycterismus	Coelorinchus mycterismus
Peristrophe	Genus Peristrophe (invalid)
Pleonasm	Rhodostrophia pleonasma
Syncope	Genus Syncope (invalid)

I welcome corrections or additions of your own.

[thomaseverest]

Neat. I wonder how many of these are not necessarily named after a figure of speech, but named for the Latin meaning which was also the source of the figure of speech.

For example: dialysis is most commonly known as a procedure to remove waste products from kidneys (although there are other broader applications of the procedure). It is also a figure of speech for lists without conjunctions. The original Greek just means “to split”. So the genus could have been named after any one of these things. The original description doesn’t give any clues, but maybe someone who knows these flies could chime in.