Date:         Fri, 30 May 1997 17:12:43 EDT
From: the flute-minor <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      EXERCISE: Don't Stop Now

[just a quick quirky one, based on a word I just learned.]

aposiopesis - a figure of speech in which the speaker breaks off
suddenly, as if unwilling or unable to state what was in his or her
mind

(from the OED)

aposiopesis L., a. Gr. aposiwphsij, n. of action f. apo-siwpa-ein to
keep silent. A rhetorical artifice, in which the speaker comes to a
sudden halt, as if unable or unwilling to proceed.

Here's your challenge--poets?  write a little ditty using the
unwritten words, the unfinished sayings, the silent rhymes that
wring the readers' minds.

I always like to have fun
But they said it couldn't be ...

oh, I'm sure you can do far better than that!

non-poetics?  you may use such an unfinished phrase as a dialogue
twist, a point where the listeners (and the readers) fill in the blanks
and make the connections.

write!
tink