A popular rhetorical device, anapodoton is when the main clause of a phrase that is unsaid, is implied by a well-known subordinate clause, writes Roopa Banerjee

When someone says, ‘When in Rome…’ and leaves the sentence midway, we know that the sentence would go on to have a main clause i.e, ‘Do as Romans do’. This literary technique where a main clause of a sentence is suggested by the introduction of a subordinate clause is known as anapodoton. A popular rhetorical device, anapodoton is when the main clause of a phrase/sentence that is unsaid is implied by a subordinate clause that is said.

Anapodoton is when you stop saying something halfway through. This could be either because an entirely new thought has occurred to you, or because everyone can understand where the sentence is going, and so there’s no need to actually put it in words.

A speaker could omit the main clause also because she interrupts herself to modify the idea, leaving the sentence grammatically unresolved but changing its content into a new sentence. For example, when you say ‘If you think this is the end …Of course not!’ this indicates that you stopped for a minute to correct your tone and meaning.

Anapodoton originated from the Greek anapodosis which means “without a main clause.” It is generally used for popular idioms or oft used sentences where one can easily guess the missing words. Like ‘If the shoe fits, (wear it)’ or ‘If pigs had wings, (they would fly)’.

This literary device is often used in classical Chinese and Japanese, where a long scholarly phrase is shortened to an adequate allusion. For example, the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi’s phrase “A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean” meaning “People of limited experience have a narrow world view” is conveyed as “A frog in a well” in modern Chinese.

However, anapodoton works best with first-person narration or dialogues. But, you could also make it work in essays, poetry, and even formal writing. Moreover, it succeeds only if the missing part of the sentence is known widely enough to be easily added. If not, you are just left with a fragment of a sentence which will have the grammar purists after you!

Literature has many examples of this rhetorical figure of speech. American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald used anapodoton in the closing lines of The Great Gatsby with an incomplete thought: “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Anapodoton is not always used with famous idioms. It can also be used by deliberately creating a sentence fragment by the absence of a clause: “If only you came with me!”
We will end this with an exercise, as always. As they say, all good things…!

Exercise
Though grammatically incorrect, anapodoton is commonplace in informal speech. Fill in the implied words in the following examples of anapodoton:
1. If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad…
2. When the cat’s away…
3. All that glitters…
4. Where there is a will..

Answers:
1. Muhammed will go to the mountain.
2. the mice will play.
3. is not gold.
4. there is a way.