TALKING ABOUT STYLE

Sometimes it’s fun to turn the principle of climactic order upside down, opening with grand or exaggerated language only to end anticlimactically, with everyday words.

He is a writer for the ages—the ages of four to eight.

– Dorothy Parker

Parker builds up high expectations at the beginning of the sentence—only to undercut them unexpectedly by shifting the meaning of ages. Having led readers to expect something dramatic, she makes us laugh, or at least smile, with words that are decidedly undramatic.