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Merism ( la, merismus, grc-gre, μερισμός, merismós) is a rhetorical device (or figure of speech) in which a combination of two ''contrasting parts'' of the whole refer to the whole. For example, in order to say that someone "searched everywhere", one could use the merism "searched high and low". Another example is the
sword-and-sandal Sword-and-sandal, also known as peplum (pepla plural), is a subgenre of largely Italian-made historical, mythological, or Biblical epics mostly set in the Greco-Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budget ...
movie genre, a loose term for a genre of movies made principally in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
in the 1950s and 1960s set in
Classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
. Merisms are common in the
Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
. For example, in
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
1:1, when God creates את השמים ואת הארץ (Modern pronunciation: ''et hashamaim ve-et haarets'') "the heavens and the earth" (
New Revised Standard Version The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches.universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the univers ...
''. Other famous examples of Biblical merisms are Genesis 1:5, where "evening" and "morning" refer to "one day" (including noon, afternoon etc.); and Psalm 139, where the psalmist declares that God knows "my downsitting and my uprising", i.e. God knows ''all'' the psalmist’s actions.


Etymology

The term entered English in 1894 in the biological sense, but had appeared earlier in rhetorical contexts where it denoted "'
synecdoche Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy: it is a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something is used to refer to the whole ('' pars pro toto''), or vice versa ('' totum pro parte''). The term comes from Greek . Examples in common E ...
in which totality is expressed by contrasting parts' (such as ''high and low'', ''young and old'')". It derives from Modern Latin ''merismus'', from Greek μερισμός ''merismos'' 'a dividing or partitioning', ultimately from ''merizein'' 'to divide', from ''meros'' 'part, share'.


Biological usage

In
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
, a merism is a repetition of similar parts in the structure of an organism (Bateson 1894). Such features are called meristic characters, and the study of such characters is called
meristics Meristics is an area of ichthyology and herpetology which relates to counting quantitative features of fish and reptiles, such as the number of fins or scales. A meristic (countable trait) can be used to describe a particular species of fish, or us ...
. An example is in flowers, considering the number of parts in each whorl of organs from which they are constructed.


Legal usage

Merisms frequently figure in the writing of
lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicit ...
s, and are a hallmark of legal style. The two parts of the legal merism "
Last Will and Testament A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property ( estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person (executor) is to manage the property until its final distributio ...
" at one time referred to two documents, enforced in two separate
court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...
s: the ''will'' disposed of a decedent's
real property In English common law, real property, real estate, immovable property or, solely in the US and Canada, realty, is land which is the property of some person and all structures (also called improvements or fixtures) integrated with or aff ...
while the ''testament'' disposed of chattels. It became customary to combine the instruments in a single dispositive document, and the name has continued long after the doctrines that required its use became obsolete in
common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...
. A lawyer who writes a will typically includes a residuary clause that disposes of any property not covered by a prior section. The weight of tradition is such that the lawyer writing such a document will often phrase it something like this: Traditionally, a gift of real property was called a "devise" whereas a gift of other property was a "bequest". Nowadays, the words "bequeath" and "devise" are synonymous in most jurisdictions so that "I bequeath the rest of my property to ..." is enough in both law and logic to achieve the same result. Many
deed In common law, a deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, affirms or confirms an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions, sealed. It is commonly associated with transferrin ...
s frequently contain a traditional clause that says that the grantee is "to have and to hold" the property conveyed; this usage goes back to the days in which the instruments were drawn up in
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, and is sometimes called a "habendam et tenendam" clause. The use of legal merisms seldom if ever adds legal effect to the document that contains them, and frequently increases their reading difficulty. However, the weight of tradition and the fear that a deviation from the established formula might have unintended legal consequences makes lawyers reluctant to revise the traditional formulae, and their clients, seeing them, at least draw the satisfaction of knowing that their documents appear to be written by a lawyer. In some cases, the doubling (or even tripling) of constituent parts in these meristic constructions arose as a result of the transition of legal discourse from Latin to French, and then from French to English. During such periods, key terms were paired with synonyms from multiple languages in an attempt to prevent ambiguity and ensure
hermeneutic Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...
consistency.


See also

*
Synecdoche Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy: it is a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something is used to refer to the whole ('' pars pro toto''), or vice versa ('' totum pro parte''). The term comes from Greek . Examples in common E ...
, referring to a whole by the name of one of its parts (or vice versa): :* ''
Pars pro toto ''Pars pro toto'' (, ), , is a figure of speech where the name of a ''portion'' of an object, place, or concept is used or taken to represent its entirety. It is distinct from a merism, which is a reference to a whole by an enumeration of parts; ...
'', where the part is used to refer to the whole. :* '' Totum pro parte'', where the whole is used to refer to a part. *
Lock, stock, and barrel "Lock, stock, and barrel" is a merism used predominantly in the United Kingdom and North America, meaning "all", "total" or "everything". It derives from the effective portions of a gun: the lock, the stock, and the barrel. History The term wa ...


References


Further reading

*
William Bateson William Bateson (8 August 1861 – 8 February 1926) was an English biologist who was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscove ...
, ''Materials For The Study Of Variation: Treated With Especial Regard To Discontinuity In The Origin Of Species'' (Macmillan and Co., 1894) *
Bryan A. Garner Bryan Andrew Garner (born 1958) is an American lawyer, lexicographer, and teacher who has written more than two dozen books about English usage and style such as ''Garner's Modern English Usage'' for a general audience, and others for legal profe ...
, ''The Elements of Legal Style''. (Oxford, 2001. ) *
Calvert Watkins Calvert Watkins ( /ˈwɒtkɪnz/; March 13, 1933 – March 20, 2013) was an American linguist and philologist, known for his book '' How to Kill a Dragon''. He was a professor of linguistics and the classics at Harvard University and after retirem ...
, '' How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics'' (Oxford, 2001. ) {{Use dmy dates, date=October 2018 Rhetoric Figures of speech Legal terminology Legal history