Editor's Corner

I was reading up on rhetorical devices, and I thought there might be some new and interesting information to share with you here. Merriam-Webster provided a list of rhetorical devices and this explanation in one of their articles:

As with all fields of serious and complicated human endeavor (that can be considered variously as an art, a science, a profession, or a hobby), there is a technical vocabulary associated with writing. Rhetoric is the name for the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion, and though a writer doesn’t need to know the specific labels for certain writing techniques to use them effectively, it is sometimes helpful to have a handy taxonomy for the ways in which words and ideas are arranged. This can help to discuss and isolate ideas that might otherwise become abstract and confusing. As with the word rhetoric itself, many of these rhetorical devices come from Greek.

That said, I’m going to go through many of these items. Today’s first device is called anadiplosis. Let’s break that down a little into something that doesn’t sound like a new dinosaur name. From litcharts.com:

Anadiplosis is a figure of speech in which a word or group of words located at the end of one clause or sentence is repeated at or near the beginning of the following clause or sentence. This line from the novelist Henry James is an example of anadiplosis: "Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task."

Some additional key details about anadiplosis:

• Anadiplosis appears everywhere, from literature, to children’s books, to famous speeches, to everyday conversation. It is also very common in the Bible. [KC – Examples further below.]
• The emphasis created by anadiplosis’s repetition of words has the power to persuade, to create a sense of urgency or emotion, as well as to give a pleasing rhythm to text or speech. [KC – The nursery rhymes and song below are good representatives.]
• Anadiplosis is also often used to stretch a logical progression of ideas across three or more clauses, as in the line from the movie Gladiator: "The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor." [KC – See the example from Malcolm X and other examples that follow.]

I think this becomes simpler and more sensible by looking at examples. Here are some examples from all over the place!

• “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” (Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace)
• “Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird / And if that mockingbird won’t sing / Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring / And if that diamond ring turns brass […]” (Nursery rhyme: Hush, Little Baby)
• There was an old lady who swallowed a bird; / How absurd to swallow a bird! / She swallowed the bird to catch the spider / She swallowed the spider to catch the fly […]” (Nursery rhyme: There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly)
• “All you need is love, love is all you need.” (The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”.)
• “Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your attitude. Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern […] “The Ballot or the Bullet” (Malcom X)
• “When your cable company keeps you on hold, you get angry. When you get angry, you blow off steam.” (2012 Direct TV ad)
• The love of wicked men converts to fear, that fear to hate, and hate turns one or both to worthy danger and deserved death. (Richard II, Shakespeare)
• My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, / And every tongue brings in several a tale / And every tale condemns me for a villain. (Richard III, Shakespeare)
• I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree… (“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” William Butler Yeats)
• In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (The Holy Bible, the book of John)

As you can see from the examples, anadiplosis is everywhere! It’s always interesting to find out there’s a name for devices we use every day!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

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