de Copia

what is deCopia?

An extensive, searchable, dynamic, organized, and original treasury of English style.
A unique and mighty tool for teachers and learners, writers and readers of the language.
An attempt to make millenia of scholarship accessible, meaningful, and useful to Everyman through the unprecedented powers of the Internet.
A cabinet of curiosities for lovers of language and literature.

More specifically: deCopia is an online database that names, describes, and thoroughly exemplifies the patterns of syntax and style that make certain specimens of English especially interesting, effective, beautiful, and unique.

For most people (who aren't linguists, rhetoricians, or professors of literature), deCopia is a reference that offers a new way to think about language. Instead of focusing on what is said (as in a quotation collection) or on what words mean (as in a dictionary) or on the overall structure of arguments (as in a college-level composition textbook), deCopia focuses on how sentences and paragraphs are crafted—the endlessly varied patterns we form in our efforts at expression and communication.

Eggheads since Aristotle have known that well-crafted statements can be anatomized and classified according to how they work, why they work, what they do that distinguishes them from other expressions of similar ideas; and that this analytical process, followed-up with deliberate imitation, can help us to improve our command of language. At deCopia, you'll find sentences, paragraphs, and slightly longer passages tagged according to their distinctive qualities—using the terminology of grammar, rhetoric, and literary criticism—so that you, the curious learner, can browse explanations and examples of distinctive stylistic patterns, delight in their aesthetic variety, consider their discursive effects, even imitate and manipulate choice devices until you make them your own. As long as a language pattern can be named, consistently identified, and exemplified—and interests somebody, for whatever reason—it deserves a place in deCopia.

what the title means

De Ultraque Verborum ac Rerum Copia—translated as Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style and abbreviated as De Copia—is a manual of rhetoric by the famed Renaissance scholar and early humanist Desiderius Erasmus. In it, Erasmus explains, analyzes, and exemplifies the rhetorical virtue of copiousness, or abundance: that is, the speaker or writer's command over a wide variety of expressive possibilities.

In one famous chapter, Erasmus comes up with 195 different ways to say "Your letter pleased me greatly," intending to show that each variation in his parade manifests different virtues appropriate to different circumstances; and that the masterful stylist, fertile and adaptable, is able to employ the right one at the right time.

Like most other books on rhetoric, Erasmus' work had two primary aims: to analyze and to educate. Traditional scholars of rhetoric classified language patterns in order to understand and explain how and why well-crafted expressions achieve their ends; then they presented terminology and models that could help language-users (from schoolboys to professional rhetoricians) improve the variety and control of their style and, as a result, the power of their statements. deCopia aims to do the same.

why use deCopia?

Intellectual curiosity—which is strong enough motivation for many of us, and the primary raison d'être of most nerdy websites, like this one.

To improve your writing.

All writers, from preteens to professionals, can improve the range and control (the copiousness) of their syntax and style by exposing themselves to a wide variety of grammatical, literary, and rhetorical patterns—just as they can improve the range and control of their diction by exposing themselves to a wide variety of words. That's why people who read more write better.

Most of us develop our sentence repertoire through mysterious, passive processes involving subconscious accretions and associations, obscure rumblings, subterranean shifts. While reading, we run across patterns that strike us, impress us, resonate somewhere, stick somehow; maybe we see those patterns repeated in a few more texts; then, at some point, we write something of our own, and those patterns manifest within the Dark Cloud of Composition as new expressive possibilities—possibilities we probably wouldn't have imagined without being exposed to them at least a few times already, in writing we admired.

Of course, the trouble with mysterious, passive, subconscious processes is that we can't rely on them to learn or to teach. Because they are not deliberate or systematic, we can't control them, can't manipulate or deploy them at will. And that's why so many writers have declared that good style cannot be taught—because they themselves have no idea how they learned it. They were passive receptors, unwitting imitators.

With deCopia, we can expose ourselves to new patterns deliberately and systematically. These can be analyzed, imitated, and experimented with until we produce the same patterns spontaneously, in our own writing. We can actively imitate the patterns we want at our fingertips, actively teach ourselves to do more than we can do already, instead of hoping that fate eventually lifts our limitations.

If you want to write speeches, learn how to use anaphora. If you want to write fiction, learn how to use absolute phrases. If your sentences are distressingly short and choppy, learn how to use adverbial clauses. If you aren't confident with colons, figure them out. It can be done.

Learn a term; look at some examples; look for more examples; imitate the pattern deliberately until it comes naturally. Then you will have become a better writer.

To teach English.

If you teach grammar, and want your students to identify constructions in context, deliberately employ syntactic variety, punctuate effectively, understand some grammatical terminology, and remember any of it—

If you teach literature, and want your students to comprehend and use literary terminology, identify and analyze devices, perhaps apply those devices in their own literary creations—

If you teach writing and rhetoric, and want your students to think about how and why statements are structured in so many different ways, to so many different ends, and to approach their own work with greater critical awareness, a vocabulary through which to think and talk about style, a sensitivity to the fine-tuned dynamics of language—

If you teach anything at all, and want your students to pay attention to the way that people say things—

Then you need examples. And you probably don't have enough.

You need more examples, a boundless array of examples, so that you can

adequately exemplify when you first introduce a term or a pattern to your students (most glossaries, textbooks, and websites include zero to two examples—not nearly enough if you care whether your students learn);
reinforce the term periodically, after it's initial introduction (regular reinforcement is much more effective than just explaining the pattern in a lecture and then expecting students to see it and understand it in context for the rest of the year, or the rest of their lives);
provide students with practice identifying the pattern in context (if they don't practice using the term, you may as well not have taught it);
provide students with models to imitate so they can use the pattern in their own writing (empowering them with an ability that will apply whenever they use language, not just in your class or your discipline);
test students' comprehension.

Basically, you need more examples if you are going to make your instruction on language patterns and terminology meaningful and practically useful.

To study English.

Consider all the justifications for the academic discipline of stylistics. At the very least, we should have a careful catalog of sentence and paragraph types—incorporating grammar, rhetoric, and literary studies to analyze and label the specimens—as we have catalogs of insects and iguanas, igneous rocks and stellar bodies, words and genres.

online resources

Sites that define and exemplify rhetorical and literary devices:

The Silva Rhetoricae of Dr. Gideon Burton (of BYU)
Figaro Speech, the work of Jay Heinrichs: in his own words, he "rips the innards out of things people say and reveals the rhetorical tricks and pratfalls"
Handbook of Rhetorical Devices at Virtual Salt (Robert A. Harris)
American Rhetoric: Rhetorical Figures in Sound by Michael E. Eidenmuller
Wikipedia's "Figures of Speech" entry
Bob's Glossary of Poetic Terms ("Bob" being Robert G. Shubinski)

Sites that teach grammatical terminology:

The Internet Grammar of English, produced by the Survey of English Usage
Glossary of Linguistic Terms from LinguaLinks
UsingEnglish.com's Glossary of English Grammar Terms, which also includes some figures of speech and literary terms

There are a few very good usage and mechanics sites and blogs out there that I'm not linking to, only because deCopia has little to do with correcting usage errors. If that's what you're looking for and you want me to add such links, based on my limited knowledge and experience, send a comment.

Sites about words:

Wordnik, my favorite online dictionary, and the only one that seems to bother tyring to accumulate plentiful helpful examples of real usage
Corpuses! (Corpora!) such as the following:
- Corpus of Contemporary American English (@BYU)
- Corpus of Historical American English (@BYU)
- Google Books: American English Corpus (@BYU)
- Time Magazine Corpus (@BYU)
- British National Corpus

print resources

These are the books from which I've gathered most of my information about the language-patterns I can recognize and the names I use for them.

Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 4th ed. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981. (There are newer editions out there.)
Corbett, Edward P.J. and Robert J. Connors. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford UP, 1998.
Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 1995.
Cudden, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. NY: Penguin, 1998.
Greenbaum, Sidney and Randolph Quirk. A Student's Grammar of the English Language. Essex [England], 1990.
Jespersen, Otto. Essentials of English Grammar. U of AL P, 1964.
Kaplan, Jeffrey P. English Grammar: Principles and Facts. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989.
Kolln, Martha. Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects. 5th ed. NY: Pearson, 2007.
Lanham, Richard A. A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. 2nd ed. U of CA P, 1991.

contribute to deCopia

This project is ongoing and unending and could use all the help it can get.

I think I've entered enough examples and definitions to get the project going and provide a taste of what deCopia might be able to do. I will continue cataloging on my own; but I made this website in hopes to draw from the powers of others, the powers of Internet. I hope some others are inspired to participate.

If you're at all interested in the project, please contribute! I'm neither a professional linguist nor a professional programmar—so you might very well know more than I do. Here are some things you can do:

Enter new examples of current or new terms, through the "submit" page.*
Send comments or suggestions, corrections, and anything else you have to say, through the "contact" page.*
Tell others who may be interested that deCopia exists and awaits their use, feedback, and input.
Help me with web development.**

* Right now, your additions, corrections, etc., are emailed to me, and I enter the official data myself. Maybe this barrier will be taken down in the future, and users will be able to alter and add data directly. Until then, use the forms to send your ideas and I will make additions and changes quickly.