Speak like a Jedi Master you can

Excellent and brief article at World Wide Words (WWW), on a rhetoric technique called anadiplosis. Loosely translated from the Greek, it means "doubling" or "redoubling." It's very powerful oratory technique that calls attention to the connections between a series of ideas by using a word to end one sentence, and then starting the next sentence with the same word.

WWW's Michael Quinion points out this technique is used with impact in the opening of Genesis in the King James Bible: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void.” He also  notes its use by Yoda in the Star Wars films (looked for word for double trilogy... "hexilogy"? but couldn't find it): “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” [See the excellent Silva Rhetoricae online reference for more good information, or see American Rhetoric to seek out examples.]

Also putting in appearances in the column are some other tropes that sound familiar, but are differenet in meaning:

• epanadiplosis (Explore: http://gog.is/epanadiplosis)
• anaphora (Explore: http://gog.is/anaphora)

And three terms that sound different, but have similar meanings:

• antistrophe (Explore: http://gog.is/antistrophe)
• epiphora (Explore: http://gog.is/epiphora)
• epistrophe (Explore: http://gog.is/epistrophe)  

I suggest that when dealing with these foreign-sounding but perfectly legitimate English words you keep a notebook to write them down in--with examples. I picked up the idea from my martial arts training. When trying to recall the moves for "twin dragons seeking pearls," it helps to write down what that includes. Similarly, boning up on your rhetorical techniques will improve your verbal agility and ability to communicate with impact. TCL