Want to look clever; learned; pompous?
Fancy appearing to be the top brain at the table, the fount of all knowledge, the wisest of men (other sexes are available)?
Well, there's a mechanism, a way of speaking or writing, which does all that; which accelerates the pace, which imbues each clause with greater heaviness, which makes it more pregnant with meaning*, makes it hum with extra significance.
It's called asyndeton.
It involves leaving out all the conjunctions (those are the words like and, so, but, because, which join bits of sentences together).
What is it like?
Well, it's rather like this post, here.
Thing To Consider Today: asyndeton. This word comes from the Greek asundeton, from sundein, to bind together.
*Hey, look at that: it is possible to be more pregnant!
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are very welcome, but please make them suitable for The Word Den's family audience.