Ever tried convincing someone to pick your favorite movie for movie night? Or maybe defended pineapple on a pizza? Whether you knew it or not, you were tapping into one of the oldest human traditions: ...

If registers of speech were dress codes, I’d clothe anadiplosis in “poetic-formal.” Poetic-formal because anadiplosis is stately—stately, in part, because it forces the prose to slow down. Back to the ...

Rhetoric may seem abstract and old-fashioned until you realize that all your favorite rhymes and tunes and lines depend on it. Have you ever asked yourself why Obama is so rousing at a rally? It’s ...