I came across a new-to-me word while looking up something else: anacoluthon. Onelook's Quick definitions gives: noun: an abrupt change within a sentence from one syntactic structure to another , and for origin links to the Online Etymology Dictionary, which says: anacoluthon
1706, "want of grammatical sequence, changing constructions in mid-clause," from L., from Gk. neut. of anakolouthos "inconsequent," from an- "not" + akolouthos "following," from copulative prefix a- + keleuthos "way, road, track, path" (see celerity).
Then I wondered whether our fearless leader had ever used it, and sure enough he had. I'll put it all below because I found it so interesting, not having been familiar with Tintin. But what really amazed me was that a word like anacoluthon would have been used in a comic book. Ok:
All good things come in small numbers and perhaps that explains why
there are only two dozen Tintin comics. Originally written in French
and meticulously drawn by the Belgian artist Herge between 1929 and
1986, every page of Tintin is truly a feast for the eyes. It's no
wonder Tintin is read by fans in over 50 languages around the world.
In his adventures the boy reporter Tintin is accompanied by a small
white fox terrier Snowy, absent-minded Professor Calculus, bumbling
fools Thompson & Thomson, and of course, Captain Haddock with the
unforgettable curses that betray his expansive vocabulary. The
official Tintin Web site is www.tintin.be . This week's AWAD
features words from the English translation of Tintin comics. -Anu

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Date: Tue Dec 16 00:03:11 EST 1997
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--anacoluthon
X-Bonus: Problems are only opportunities in work clothes. -Henry J. Kaiser

an.a.co.lu.thon n. A want of grammatical sequence or coherence in
a sentence; an instance of a change of construction in a sentence
so that the latter part does not syntactically correspond with
the first part.

Herge, Explorers on the Moon, 1954, p. 176
Captain Haddock: "Blistering barnacles, this is a serious
interrogation! In other words, anacoluthons, you keep out of it."


This week's theme: words from Tintin comics.


Further search revealed that anacoluthon has been mentioned here 3 times (didn't bother to LU Tintin, but I know it has): Bill posted about it, and it was mentioned in this thread too, which gives us the word that some of us keep trying to remember:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=14219

ah, I miss bridget96 and her charming obsession with figures of rhetoric! In honour of her quick-flighted conversational style I will add the subset of anapodoton :)

an'-a-po'-do-ton Gk. "without the main clause (apodosis)."

A figure in which a main clause is suggested by the introduction of a subordinate clause, but that main clause never occurs.

http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/A/anapodoton.htm

A fine example from the current legal quagmire:

Michael Williams, chair of the ethics committee of the American Academy of Neurology, was among those taking exception to Frist's comments.

"For Dr. Frist to make a statement like that — it's like me making an off-the-cuff statement about a heart transplant patient," said Williams, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/
la-na-frist22mar22,0,4390116.story?coll=la-home-headlines

mav:

It never ceases to amaze me just how many words there are in this arena. I've always had a hard time imagining these brilliant minds' slaving away over tiny little nuances of expression. I never took any courses in rhetoric, and a small part of me recoils at the very thought of it, as it seems at times stultifying.

BTW I loved the tiny irony of the grammatical error in:

"For Dr. Frist to make a statement like that — it's like me making an off-the-cuff statement about a heart transplant patient,"

And when first I read the quote, I missed the Dr. in front of Frist and was flummoxed for a second or two trying to figure out the connection between our politician Bill Frist and heart transplants.

Frist is the man who took over as the Majority Leader in the senate after Trent Lott was deposed. I made a auip at the time that this was preordained in the Bible, because

That which was Lott's shall be Frist's.

TEd

> slaving away over tiny little nuances of expression. I never took any courses in rhetoric, and a small part of me recoils at the very thought of it, as it seems at times stultifying.

I agree TEd ~ heh, it always seems to me a kissing cousin of the foggier reaches of post-facto grammar labelling! But I am happy to know some of the main roads on this map, and to sometimes take a stroll down a little-visited byeway.