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 was the Head—the Head of Heads at the bank. The hierarchy was strict. Money laundering was not to be taken lightly. As Head of Heads, I was the ahead of the other Heads. In a way, it was a mistake to call them Heads—they were actually Junior Assistant Heads, and they did what I told them to do. We had to go down to the docks today to pick up a cargo container of cash: $100,000,500. It was looted from the Bank of Syria during the latest round of warfare. Before we took it off-site we had to check it out. We drove it down to the boonies to open the doors. My Assistant Head headed over to the container, unlocked it, and opened the doors. The cash was stacked up against the far end of the cargo container.
The cargo container had been refitted as a mobile home. There were six guys playing poker and drinking beer by the entrance. There were five more guys playing video games on the 70” plasma screen TV. They all had guns. “Take us to your bank,” one of them said. So, we drove off to the bank like we always did, with the addition of human cargo. When we got to the bank, the container passengers rolled out their wheeled luggage and headed down the street singing “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” by Boy George. Later that week, I saw a poster on a telephone phone pole advertising “The Flying Damascus Bothers.” They were acrobats, but they were also the guys we had imported into the US along with a lifetime supply of cash. We had set up an account, as instructed, for Hama Hussein. So long as nobody started poking around, the money was clean, and I guess, the acrobats are safe. They performed on the “Apprentice.” They were fired by our future President. He said their “costumes made them look like girls, which was a disaster for acrobats who already were sissies.”
“The Flying Damascus Brothers” were outraged. They let the air out of Trump’s limo tires and sailed pieces of manakish at his head as he left the studio, and Trump slipped on a small piece of cheese and almost broke his back. Of course, the police were called. But “The Flying Damascus Brothers” escaped in their converted cargo container. They drove to Las Vegas and landed a huge contract with Cirque du Soleil. They changed their name to evade detection. Now, they call themselves “The Flying Denver Brothers.”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99.
The Daily Trope 