Merism (, ) 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), is a subgenre of largely Italy, 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, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

in the 1950s and 1960s set in

classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

. Merisms are common in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (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 and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

. For example, in Genesis 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 a translation of the Bible in American English. It was first published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches, the NRSV was created by an ecumenical committee of scholars "comprising about thirt ...

), the two parts (heavens and earth) do not refer only to the heavens and the earth. Rather, they refer to the heavens, the earth ''and everything between them'': God created the ''entire world'', the ''whole

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

''. Other famous examples of Biblical merisms are Genesis 1:5 in which "evening" and "morning" refer to "one day" (including noon, afternoon etc.) and Psalm 139 in which the psalmist declares that God knows "my downsitting and my uprising": God knows all of the psalmist's actions.

Etymology

The term entered English in 1894 in the biological sense but had appeared earlier in rhetorical contexts in which it denoted "'

synecdoche Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy; it is a figure of speech that uses a term for a part of something to refer to the whole (''pars pro toto''), or vice versa (''totum pro parte''). The term is derived . Common English synecdoches include '' ...

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

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

, 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 zoology and botany which relates to counting quantitative features of animals and plants, such as the number of fins or scales in fish. A meristic (countable trait) can be used to describe a particular species, or used to i ...

. An example is in flowers in considering the number of parts in each whorl of organs from which they are constructed.

Legal usage

Merisms frequently figure in the writing of lawyers and are a hallmark of legal style. The two parts of the legal merism " Last Will and Testament" at one time referred to two documents, which were enforced in two separate

court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

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, refers to parcels of land and any associated structures which are the property of a person. For a structure (also called an Land i ...

, and 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 had required its use became obsolete in

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

. 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", and a gift of other property was a "bequest". Nowadays, the words "bequeath" and "devise" are synonymous in most jurisdictions and so "I bequeath the rest of my property to..." is enough in both law and logic to achieve the same result. Many

deed A deed is a legal document that is signed and delivered, especially concerning the ownership of property or legal rights. Specifically, in common law, a deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, affirms or confirms an interest, right ...

s frequently contain a traditional clause that says that the grantee is "to have and to hold" the property conveyed. That 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 spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, and is sometimes called a "habendam et tenendam" clause. The use of legal merisms seldom, if ever, adds legal effect to the documents that contain them, but it frequently increases their reading difficulty. However, the weight of tradition and the fear of a deviation from the established formula having unintended legal consequences make 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 the 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 consistency.

Etymology

Biological usage

Legal usage

See also

References

Further reading