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May 2, 2007

This week's theme
Words about words

This week's words
haplography
obiter dictum
asyndeton
verbigeration
brachylogy

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asyndeton

asyndeton (uh-SIN-di-ton, -tuhn) noun

noun: Omission of conjunctions, as in "I came, I saw, I conquered."

[From Late Latin, from Greek, from neuter of asyndetos (not linked), from a- + syndetos (bound together), from syndein (to bind together), from syn- + dein (to bind).]

NOTES: Asyndeton is a powerful device to indicate extemporaneous effect, and to add intensity or force to diction. Imagine if it were "I came, I saw, and I conquered." It's easy to see how rhythm is lost.

If you're itching to use all those conjunctions you've saved with the use of asyndeton, try polysyndeton, as in "Uncle Charlie gobbled cookies and bagels and pizza and pasta."

"The unwillingness to waste words shows up in the address's telegraphic quality -- the omission of coupling words, a technique rhetoricians call asyndeton. Triple phrases sound as to a drumbeat, with no 'and' or 'but' to slow their insistency: 'We are engaged... We are met... We have come...'"
The Words That Remade America: Lincoln at Gettysburg; The Atlantic Monthly (Boston); Jun 1992.

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