Traductio (tra-duk’-ti-o): Repeating the same word variously throughout a sentence or thought. Some authorities restrict traductio further to mean repeating the same word but with a different meaning (see ploce, antanaclasis, and diaphora), or in a different form (polyptoton). If the repeated word occurs in parallel fashion at the beginnings of phrases or clauses, it becomes anaphora; at the endings of phrases or clauses, epistrophe.
I went into Bohm’s Department store. I was looking for some socks, and maybe, some kind of appliance—a blender? A pasta machine? Anything, maybe, to plug in the kitchen wall. I could feel a pee coming on, so I ducked into the “anybody goes” restroom and locked the door. For some reason I had to pee really badly. I stood in front of the urinal, spread my feet, unbuttoned my pants and pulled them halfway down my butt, fished around for my weenie, pulled it out and started to pee into the urinal, imagining it was my Life Coach Brad’s face. I peed, and then I peed some more, and some more, and some more. I just kept peeing and peeing. I had peed for at least five minutes when I became panic stricken. Was I going to dry out and die? Would I ever stop peeing? Should I call 911? Should I just walk out of the restroom peeing, get in my car, pee in my car and drive home? What would I do when I got there? Pee all over my house? Pee in the bathtub with the drain open? I couldn’t go to work and pee all over my desk. I would be panhandling in a month—“The Peeing Panhandler” standing in a puddle of pee on the street, near a storm drain. I decided the hospital’s Emergency Room was my best bet.
As I walked through Bohm’s heading for the exit, customers were yelling at me things like “disgusting pervert,” showing no mercy. As I walked, I tried to pull up my pants, but I couldn’t get my weenie back in my pants and it swung back and forth, spraying a swath of pee in front of me, making it look like I was purposely peeing on the floor. Leaving a glistening trail behind me, I finally found my car. I heard police sirens headed for Bohm’s. I had to get to the emergency room. I set my GPS and headed out. I got to the emergency room admission counter and told the receptionist that I couldn’t stop peeing—I had managed to pull my pants up, but I was standing in a growing puddle, so there should’ve been no doubt that I had an emergency. She said curtly, “Wait across the hall in the waiting room.” I sat there for 1 hour and the waiting room was flooded with about 3/4” of pee. The other people in the waiting room were very irritated, especially the ones who were wearing sandals or flip-flops. They went to the reception counter and their spokesperson told the receptionist they would kill her if I wasn’t let out of the waiting room to see a doctor. She capitulated.
The Doctor immediately knew what was wrong. My, and many others’, obsession with hydration and dinking what he called “a shitload” of bottled water every day, had triggered the mutation of a usually benign gene located in the brain, inducing the body to make a continuous stream of urine. No one knows where the quantity of urine comes from, but research is underway at a number of well-known university hospitals. Luckily, the condition can be managed. It is called “Aquapox.” The “pox” erupt on your ears and then immediately disappear. The doctor said I could control my Aquapox by having my gene regularly unmutated by slathering my ears with Neosporin and by having a faucet installed on my weenie.
Everything’s under control now. My faucet is a little unwieldy, and I have to use stalls in public restrooms to keep from scaring people. These days, when I get “turned on” it’s to pee. I have a special set of tools for the other kind of turn on.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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