In ceremonial speeches we sometimes want to overwhelm with amplification. Now people often shy away from repeating the same word and that's good advice in general, but at times repeating the exact wording is exactly what's needed. And three stylistic devices capitalize on this, diacope, epanalepsis and azusa. So first off, diacope, this is a device where you repeat the same idea with a word intervening. Diacope means, basically, to cut in two. Tony Blair used diacope when speaking to the press following the death of Princess Diana. >> The people everywhere, not just here in Britain, everywhere, they kept faith with Princess Diana. >> So that's just one repeated word, but it amplifies the key theme, Diana was widely loved. That's an epideictic theme emphasized through reputation. Now, diacope can show urgency. It did that in Shakespeare's Richard III. A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! When Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska, was running for the vice presidency, she routinely used diacope to express her enthusiasm for an oil based energy policy. >> Senator McCain does support this. The chant Is, drill, baby, drill. And that's what we hear all across in this country in our rallies, because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into. >> Drill, baby, drill, right? Get that oil out of the ground. Now a similar device is epanalepsis. And this involves starting and ending a phrase with the same set of words. And you can hear this in Elie Wiesel's speech at the Buchenwald concentration camp. >> The time has come. It's enough, enough to go to cemeteries, enough to weep for orphans. It's enough. >> The repetition of those two words conveys such deep emotion. And we can see this in other places, too. Mario Cuomo, the Governor of New York, used epanalepsis in 1984 to chastise President Reagan for his economic policies. >> Inflation is down since 1980 But not because of the supply side miracle promised to us by the president. Inflation was reduced the old-fashioned way with a recession. Two years of massive unemployment, more hungry, in this world of enormous affluence, the United States of America, more hungry. >> The repetition here really emphasizes the point, and emphasis is key for us. Now emphasis in speeches often tracks presence, more mentions more important. Epizeuxis simply repeats the key word for effect. So JC Watts is an American politician, and he wanted to emphasize the seriousness of China and India's global competitors to the economic power of the US. So what did he do? He just repeated the word. >> What kind of America do we want over the next 20, 25 years? Do we want an America that's going to be able to compete in a global marketplace with two serious challengers, China and India? Over the next 20, 25 years China and India will emerge as serious, serious, serious global players, and we will have to compete with them. >> Perhaps my favorite epizeuxis comes from Tony Blair. So we'll start at the video with Tony Blair, we'll end with him as well. And Blair was challenging Prime Minister John Major back in 1997 and he delivered this line. >> Isn't it extraordinary that the prime minister of our country can't even urge his party to support his own position. Yeah, weak, weak! Weak! >> [APPLAUSE] >> So that's just a twisting of the knife there. Weak, weak weak! All the brilliant reaction there. That might be the most English parliamentary moment I can think of, bully, bully, bully, right. So now imagine if Blair had just said he can't urge his party to support his own position. Yeah, that's weak. That's no where near the effect of weak, weak, weak. All right? The repetition works. When writing good speeches you want to repeat, repeat, repeat what is needed, needed, needed. But use caution right, because going too many times and it can be bad, bad, bad. [MUSIC]