Polyptoton (po-lyp-to’-ton): Repeating a word, but in a different form. Using a cognate of a given word in close proximity.
I took the metro to the hospital. I was wearing my Kevlar vest. The fleet of police cars had been sidelined due to a recall for sirens that exceeded OSHA sound parameters. Cops were going deaf and it was Sam’s Sounds’ “Whoop Whoop Pull Over 26” that was the culprit. It was manufactured in American Samoa where rules were loosened to help their economy. Usually, the sirens were tested on rats. If the rats’ ears bled, the siren was rejected. Our city’s Samoan police car sirens had not been tested. We now had a police force with impaired hearing. “What?” was the most frequently said thing at the Station or out in the field. For example, “Man down!” would elicit a “What?” This resulted in a significant jump in police and bad guy fatalities. The Department was due for hearing aids once the lawsuit was settled with with Sam’s Sounds, who would probably go out of business. In the meantime, a number of officers had taken to carrying small plastic funnels and sticking them in their ears when conversing. However the funnels were useless when handcuffing a perpetrator or beating him on the head with a truncheon. There were also the comedic moments when an office would mishear,. For example, an arresting officer would bring bring in a perpetrator and say “We’ve got a new guest” to the desk sergeant. The desk sergeant would hear “breast” instead of “guest.” And respond “What? Breast?” and everybody would laugh, most of them not knowing why, because they didn’t hear the desk sergeant’s response.
It was a total mess.
I had been on “medical” leave when the new sirens had been installed, so I missed their effects on my ears. In retrospect, my running around the Station in my underpants for three days making mooing sounds was a blessing. Now, as the “last man standing” the Chief had dispatched me to the hospital to apprehend a “shooter” who had killed several people with a blowgun with poison-tipped darts. When I got off the METRO, everybody on the platform wanted to know “Who will kill the killer?” I said “Me” and pulled out my service revolver.
When I entered the hospital, I immediately saw the shooter coming toward me with his blown-gun to his lips. He was not a very tall man. He had a Beatles-type haircut, no shirt, was wearing what looked like a kilt made out of hay, and penny loafers with white socks. I saw him start to inhale, so I shot him, unloading my revolver into his torso. I was pretty sure he was dead, but I reloaded and shot him six more times. I received the “No Collateral Damage Award” for not killing any innocent bystanders during the execution of my duties at the hospital. There was a ricochet that killed a service dog, but that didn’t count.. I got a pay raise too.
We found out that my victim was an Anthropology professor from Straight Line Community College. He had gone crazy and was obsessed with testing the blowgun he had obtained in Sri Lanka on his most recent research expedition—he purchased it at the airport gift shop and was concerned that it was just a cheap knock-off. Saying that he had “morals” he targeted “really sick” people at the hospital. Well, we decided he was “really sick,” and that terminating him was permissible, or “All in a day’s work” as we say here at the Station, or “All in a day’s wok” as many of my colleagues would hear it.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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