Chiasmus, the reversal of the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases, is one of the great mainstays of rhetoric: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. This is not the beginning of the end, but, perhaps, the end of the beginning. And so on.
Apparently, anyway. No, I didn't know the word either. Hoorah, then, for Chiasmus.com for collecting them. Here's another for you, from George Bernard Shaw. Included only because I like the word Shavian:
"People are fond of blaming valets
because no man is a hero to his valet.
But it is equally true that no man is a valet to his hero."
[
Ben Hammersley.com]
I think I might have known the definition of chiasmus at some point in the past, but I certainly haven't thought of it in a while. Thanks to Ben for the refresher.
Like Ben, I too am a big fan of the word Shavian.
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