Antanaclasis

In rhetoric, antanaclasis ( /æntəˈnækləsɨs/ ant-ə-nak-lə-sis or /ˌæntænəˈklæsɨs/ ant-an-ə-klas-iss; from the Greek: ἀντανάκλασις, antanáklasis, meaning "reflection") is the stylistic trope of repeating a single word, but with a different meaning each time. Antanaclasis is a common type of pun, and like other kinds of pun, it is often found in slogans.

Examples

• A famous example of antanaclasis is seen in William Shakespeare's Henry V when the King sends the French ambassadors back to their master with an answer to the insulting gift of tennis-balls. He says, "for many a thousand widows/ Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands; Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;" (HENRY V, I, ii, 284-286)
• Shakespeare also employed antanaclasis in Hamlet, when Polonius doles out advice to his daughter, Ophelia: "Tender yourself more dearly...or...you'll tender me a fool." (Hamlet, I, iii, 107-110)
• Later in Hamlet, as Hamlet watches the gravedigger, he speculates on the possible former identities of the remains being removed from the grave: "This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt?" (HAMLET, V, i, 103-108) In this instance we see "fine" used in four separate ways and "recovery" used in two.
• "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." —Benjamin Franklin
• "If you aren't fired (up) with enthusiasm, you will be fired, with enthusiasm." —Vince Lombardi
• "The long cigarette that's long on flavor." —from an advertisement for Pall Mall cigarettes
• "Sorry, Charlie. StarKist doesn't want tunas with good taste — StarKist wants tunas that taste good." —from StarKist tuna advertisements
• "Put out the light, then put out the light." —Shakespeare's Othello
• "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." - attributed to Groucho Marx
• "If you don't get it, you don't get it." —The Washington Post slogan
• "She is nice from far, but far from nice!" —Popular.
• "Just because a record has a groove / Don't make it in the groove." — from the song Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder
• "If it's not on, it's not on". —Advertisements promoting the use of condoms by encouraging prospective sexual partners to refuse to participate unless a condom is used.
• "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!" - Jay-Z in the song "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" by Kanye West.
• "The odds are good, but the goods are odd." —Said about one's chances of finding a date in environments where others are predominately of the opposite sex (e.g., majority male or female college campuses)
• "She's not pretty. She's not ugly. She's pretty ugly."
• Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

References

• "Michael Moncur's (Cynical) Quotations". http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26.html. Retrieved 2007-06-26. 
• Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.

See also

• Figure of speech
• Polyptoton
• Pun
• Rhetoric
• Syllepsis
• Zeugma
• List of linguistic example sentences