What's that device

Every Sunday the Wisconsin State Journal runs a puzzling column called Listen Up, in which lyrics to the popular hits of the day are printed. "Though some of the language might be objectionable to some readers," reads an introduction, "we hope it will provide parents with a better idea of what their children are hearing."

A recent installment ran the lyrics to Daniel Powter's "Bad Day," so parents could know their children were being exposed to potentially objectionable language like this:

Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion's gone away

Inspired by Listen Up, I'm instituting a new feature on Back With Interest called What's That Device. In it, I will use lyrics from the popular hits of the day to show the usage of certain invaluable rhetorical devices. I'm inaugurating What's That Device with this line from Black Eyed Peas' infectious, zeitgeist-defining, cheerfully objectionable smash hit "My Humps":

Let's spend time, not money

This is an example of zeugma, which Richard Lanham's indispensable Handlist of Rhetorical Terms defines as "A kind of ellipsis in which one word, usually a verb, governs several congruent words or clauses." So the Black Eyed Peas' lyric uses the verb spend once, but in a double sense, so that it applies to both time and money.

Here's another example, from Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock (emphasis added):

Whether the Nymph shall break Diana's Law,
Or some frail China Jar receive a Flaw,
Or stain her Honour, or her new Brocade