Figures of Speech Served Fresh

Quote:  “The game — the simple game, the beautiful game — has become the global game.”   Michael Elliott and Simon Robinson in Time.

Figure of Speech:  conduplicatio (con-du-plih-CAT-io), the repeater.

The global game is soccer, of course, whose World Cup is playing in a dozen German cities.  Writers Elliott and Robinson express their love for the sport — sorry, game — with a conduplicatio (“doubling”), a figure that repeats a word for emotional emphasis, pushed along by adjectives .

In school we’re taught not to repeat ourselves.  A diligent teacher might edit the sentence to read, “Soccer has become global.”  But the purpose of the sentence is not just to make a global point; it’s to make you love soccer.  The difference, in other words, is purely rhetorical.  The art of rhetoric — the complex art, the beautiful art — is a persuasive art.

Snappy Answer:  “That explains why Americans don’t watch soccer.”