Conduplicatio (con-du-pli-ca’-ti-o): The repetition of a word or words. A general term for repetition sometimes carrying the more specific meaning of repetition of words in adjacent phrases or clauses. Sometimes used to name either ploce or epizeuxis.
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Was that Santa laughing, or was it my cousin Carl doing his counting prostitutes joke? How would you know? Actually it was Carl imitating Santa as a lead-in to his counting prostitutes joke. I wish I could disown him somehow. Whenever he comes around, it’s trouble, trouble, trouble. Last week he came over with a “rare fish” to sell. He claimed it came from a disappearing lake in Africa, and after the lake dried up, this fish he was selling would become rare and extremely valuable. Just as I was about to tell Carl that the fish looked like a plain old goldfish, there was a banging on the door and what sounded like Carl’s daughter Mary yelling “Daddy, daddy, daddy!”
In a flash, I figured Carl had taken Mary’s pet goldfish Bubbles and was trying to pawn it off as a rare endangered species so he could get more money for it, and maybe, pay one of his many debts—debts ranging from gambling to monthly payments on his mob-provided Polo wardrobe. Carl thought I was a super chump, and, in a way, I was.
Crying, Mary hugged the fish bowl. I was afraid her tears would make the water too salty for Bubbles. I asked Carl, “How much is the fish?” He said, “$150.00.” I paid the 150 and told Mary she could take Bubbles back home. She lived across the street, so I was sure she could handle it. She left, smiling and hugging the sloshing fishbowl.
After Mary left, Carl thanked me and I punched him in the stomach. As he lay there on the kitchen floor squirming in pain, I yelled, “If I wasn’t such a super chump, I’d stomp you. Give the 150 to Mary as soon as you get home, or somebody will find your foot sticking out of a landfill.”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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