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Name for rhetorical technique of abandoning commas in a long list?
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I just came across a very nice example of a rhetorical structure I know I have seen many, many times:
Our national character feels like it’s possessed by every hellish ghost of American history: white supremacist patriarchs, gilded age swindlers, paranoid McCarthyists, Know-Nothings and Klansmen and con artists and terrorists.
(Source: Sarah Kendzior writing for The Globe and Mail.)
Notice that the usual comma-delimited list turns, after the word "McCarthyists", into an unpunctuated list separated by repeated use of the word "and". The effect (at least on me as a reader) is to create a simultaneous sense of both urgency (we are trying to get through this list as fast as possible) and exhaustion (this list is SO LONG that we can't even use commas any more).
Does this rhetorical technique have a name?
commas rhetoric
asked 1 hour ago
mweiss
21919
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
I just came across a very nice example of a rhetorical structure I know I have seen many, many times:
Our national character feels like it’s possessed by every hellish ghost of American history: white supremacist patriarchs, gilded age swindlers, paranoid McCarthyists, Know-Nothings and Klansmen and con artists and terrorists.
(Source: Sarah Kendzior writing for The Globe and Mail.)
Notice that the usual comma-delimited list turns, after the word "McCarthyists", into an unpunctuated list separated by repeated use of the word "and". The effect (at least on me as a reader) is to create a simultaneous sense of both urgency (we are trying to get through this list as fast as possible) and exhaustion (this list is SO LONG that we can't even use commas any more).
Does this rhetorical technique have a name?
commas rhetoric
asked 1 hour ago
mweiss
21919
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
I just came across a very nice example of a rhetorical structure I know I have seen many, many times:
Our national character feels like it’s possessed by every hellish ghost of American history: white supremacist patriarchs, gilded age swindlers, paranoid McCarthyists, Know-Nothings and Klansmen and con artists and terrorists.
(Source: Sarah Kendzior writing for The Globe and Mail.)
Notice that the usual comma-delimited list turns, after the word "McCarthyists", into an unpunctuated list separated by repeated use of the word "and". The effect (at least on me as a reader) is to create a simultaneous sense of both urgency (we are trying to get through this list as fast as possible) and exhaustion (this list is SO LONG that we can't even use commas any more).
Does this rhetorical technique have a name?
commas rhetoric
asked 1 hour ago
mweiss
21919
I just came across a very nice example of a rhetorical structure I know I have seen many, many times:
Our national character feels like it’s possessed by every hellish ghost of American history: white supremacist patriarchs, gilded age swindlers, paranoid McCarthyists, Know-Nothings and Klansmen and con artists and terrorists.
(Source: Sarah Kendzior writing for The Globe and Mail.)
Notice that the usual comma-delimited list turns, after the word "McCarthyists", into an unpunctuated list separated by repeated use of the word "and". The effect (at least on me as a reader) is to create a simultaneous sense of both urgency (we are trying to get through this list as fast as possible) and exhaustion (this list is SO LONG that we can't even use commas any more).
Does this rhetorical technique have a name?
commas rhetoric
commas rhetoric
asked 1 hour ago
mweiss
21919
asked 1 hour ago
mweiss
21919
asked 1 hour ago
mweiss
21919
asked 1 hour ago
mweiss
21919
asked 1 hour ago
mweiss
21919
21919
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
1 Answer
1
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oldest
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up vote
5
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You are likely thinking of polysyndeton or asyndeton—probably the latter, but the former can achieve the same result in a different way. From your example, the list of which includes both comma-separated items and conjunction-separated items, I might conclude both could be applicable here.
Polysyndeton is the use of multiple conjunctions to stretch out a passage of prose to avoid coming to a full stop:
I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.
— Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."
Asyndeton is the avoidance of conjunctions, "often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect":
I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods. — Her Kind by Anne Sexton
(See Sylva Rhetoricae.)
answered 1 hour ago
Robusto
126k27300509
These are both close, but I'm interested specifically in the use of beginning a list with commas (which I guess would be asyndeton) and then "changing" to a list with no commas but conjunctions (polysyndeton). It's the transition from one to the other mid-list that I find interesting.
– mweiss
13 mins ago
@mweiss: It is an admixture of both, which probably doesn't have a separate name because naming ad hoc combinations of rhetorical figures would cause the already prodigious list of named figures to expand at least geometrically.
– Robusto
5 mins ago
add a comment |Â
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
5
down vote
You are likely thinking of polysyndeton or asyndeton—probably the latter, but the former can achieve the same result in a different way. From your example, the list of which includes both comma-separated items and conjunction-separated items, I might conclude both could be applicable here.
Polysyndeton is the use of multiple conjunctions to stretch out a passage of prose to avoid coming to a full stop:
I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.
— Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."
Asyndeton is the avoidance of conjunctions, "often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect":
I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods. — Her Kind by Anne Sexton
(See Sylva Rhetoricae.)
answered 1 hour ago
Robusto
126k27300509
These are both close, but I'm interested specifically in the use of beginning a list with commas (which I guess would be asyndeton) and then "changing" to a list with no commas but conjunctions (polysyndeton). It's the transition from one to the other mid-list that I find interesting.
– mweiss
13 mins ago
@mweiss: It is an admixture of both, which probably doesn't have a separate name because naming ad hoc combinations of rhetorical figures would cause the already prodigious list of named figures to expand at least geometrically.
– Robusto
5 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
5
down vote
You are likely thinking of polysyndeton or asyndeton—probably the latter, but the former can achieve the same result in a different way. From your example, the list of which includes both comma-separated items and conjunction-separated items, I might conclude both could be applicable here.
Polysyndeton is the use of multiple conjunctions to stretch out a passage of prose to avoid coming to a full stop:
I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.
— Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."
Asyndeton is the avoidance of conjunctions, "often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect":
I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods. — Her Kind by Anne Sexton
(See Sylva Rhetoricae.)
answered 1 hour ago
Robusto
126k27300509
These are both close, but I'm interested specifically in the use of beginning a list with commas (which I guess would be asyndeton) and then "changing" to a list with no commas but conjunctions (polysyndeton). It's the transition from one to the other mid-list that I find interesting.
– mweiss
13 mins ago
@mweiss: It is an admixture of both, which probably doesn't have a separate name because naming ad hoc combinations of rhetorical figures would cause the already prodigious list of named figures to expand at least geometrically.
– Robusto
5 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
5
down vote
up vote
5
down vote
You are likely thinking of polysyndeton or asyndeton—probably the latter, but the former can achieve the same result in a different way. From your example, the list of which includes both comma-separated items and conjunction-separated items, I might conclude both could be applicable here.
Polysyndeton is the use of multiple conjunctions to stretch out a passage of prose to avoid coming to a full stop:
I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.
— Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."
Asyndeton is the avoidance of conjunctions, "often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect":
I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods. — Her Kind by Anne Sexton
(See Sylva Rhetoricae.)
answered 1 hour ago
Robusto
126k27300509
You are likely thinking of polysyndeton or asyndeton—probably the latter, but the former can achieve the same result in a different way. From your example, the list of which includes both comma-separated items and conjunction-separated items, I might conclude both could be applicable here.
Polysyndeton is the use of multiple conjunctions to stretch out a passage of prose to avoid coming to a full stop:
I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.
— Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."
Asyndeton is the avoidance of conjunctions, "often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect":
I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods. — Her Kind by Anne Sexton
(See Sylva Rhetoricae.)
answered 1 hour ago
Robusto
126k27300509
edited 37 mins ago
answered 1 hour ago
Robusto
126k27300509
answered 1 hour ago
Robusto
126k27300509
answered 1 hour ago
Robusto
126k27300509
126k27300509
These are both close, but I'm interested specifically in the use of beginning a list with commas (which I guess would be asyndeton) and then "changing" to a list with no commas but conjunctions (polysyndeton). It's the transition from one to the other mid-list that I find interesting.
– mweiss
13 mins ago
@mweiss: It is an admixture of both, which probably doesn't have a separate name because naming ad hoc combinations of rhetorical figures would cause the already prodigious list of named figures to expand at least geometrically.
– Robusto
5 mins ago
add a comment |Â
These are both close, but I'm interested specifically in the use of beginning a list with commas (which I guess would be asyndeton) and then "changing" to a list with no commas but conjunctions (polysyndeton). It's the transition from one to the other mid-list that I find interesting.
– mweiss
13 mins ago
@mweiss: It is an admixture of both, which probably doesn't have a separate name because naming ad hoc combinations of rhetorical figures would cause the already prodigious list of named figures to expand at least geometrically.
– Robusto
5 mins ago
These are both close, but I'm interested specifically in the use of beginning a list with commas (which I guess would be asyndeton) and then "changing" to a list with no commas but conjunctions (polysyndeton). It's the transition from one to the other mid-list that I find interesting.
– mweiss
13 mins ago
These are both close, but I'm interested specifically in the use of beginning a list with commas (which I guess would be asyndeton) and then "changing" to a list with no commas but conjunctions (polysyndeton). It's the transition from one to the other mid-list that I find interesting.
– mweiss
13 mins ago
@mweiss: It is an admixture of both, which probably doesn't have a separate name because naming ad hoc combinations of rhetorical figures would cause the already prodigious list of named figures to expand at least geometrically.
– Robusto
5 mins ago
@mweiss: It is an admixture of both, which probably doesn't have a separate name because naming ad hoc combinations of rhetorical figures would cause the already prodigious list of named figures to expand at least geometrically.
– Robusto
5 mins ago
add a comment |Â
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