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A hysteron-proteron is a literary device in which the normal order of
Hypophora terms are reversed. Putting the “cart” before the “horse”.

Hypophora is a rhetorical device in which the speaker poses a Examples:
question to the audience, but then proceeds to answer it.
“I’m going to kill that magician. I’ll dismember him and then I’ll sue
him”.
(Woody Allen in “Oedipus Wrecks” in New Yoyk Stories – 1989)

Examples: Put on your shoes and socks.

“Do you know the difference between education and experience? Irony
Education is when you read the fine print; experience is when you
don’t”. Irony is the use of language which has an opposite meaning. It can
(Pete Seeger in “Loose Talk’ BY Linda Botts – 1980) be used for humour or empathy.

“You ask what is our aim? I can answer that in one word: It is Examples:
victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory,
however long and hard the road may be”. It’s ironic that the slang term for redheads in Australia is bluey.
(Winston Churchill – 1940)
The man who was grossly obese had the nickname of slim.

Hypotaxis “How nice!” she said, I have to work and can’t go to the concert.

Hypotaxis is a rhetorical device which arranges phrases or clauses “Water, water everywhere,
into a subordinate relationship. And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water everywhere,
Examples: Nor any drop to drink.”
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge – “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”)
“So sang a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle’s feet”.

(“The Clod and the Pebble” by William Blake) Litotes

I was hungry, so I ate. Litotes is a deliberate form of understatement. The effect causes
emphasis
When I am alone, I feel lonely.
Examples:

One example I give in my book, “Aussie Humour and Slang” is,
Hysteron-proteron “Bradman could play cricket a bit”. (Sir Donald Bradman was a
brilliant cricketer.)