An aposiopesis is a rhetorical tool that suggestively leaves a line or sentence incomplete. It can be used to suggest fear of discussing something taboo or sadness while speaking of tragedies. Confusion, cowardice, disgust, and horror are other emotions that aposiopesises often imply. One's imagination is often left working to fill out the rest of the unspoken or unwritten phrase. In Greek, the language of its etymologic origin, it means "becoming silent".
Some examples:
-
T. S. Eliot's poem, "The Hollow Men" ends with an aposiopesis to convey all sorts of ugly hopelessness and empty feelings.
For thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
-
Our Lady Peace's song Thief uses an aposiopesises during the chorus when Raine Maida's lyrics trail off for an incomplete, melancholy feeling.
I can't see that Thief that lives inside of your head
But I can be some courage at the side of your bed
I don't know what's happening, and I can't pretend
But I can be your...
- A more common aposiopesis is the unfinished variation of WTF, "What the--"
- Veiled threats are another common form of aposiopesis:
Another example is a line from Shakespeare's King Lear. However, there is a bit of controversy surrounding it. The word anacoluthon denotes a very similar rhetorical usage as aposiopesis. In short, what the speaker/writer intended to say/write isn't obvious with an anacoluthon, while the meaning and omitted words are obvious with an aposiopesis. The line in question is
"I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall--I will do such things,"
in
Act 2.4, concerning Lear's vengeful attitude towards his
traitorous daughters. Personally, I think it falls under the aposiopesis category. It seems to me Lear was going to end "That all the world shall" with "know". However, the vastly more qualified professors that wrote the footnotes in "The Oxford Companion to the English Language" disagree. They classify that line as an anacoluthon.
Thanks to: m_turner, Starke. Sources:
Murfin, Ross. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Boston, MA: Beford, 1998.
http://88.1911encyclopedia.org/
http://www.cyberpat.com/shakes/rhet.html