Writing Devices - Humor Polyptoton Examples: Effect: Writing Devices - Rhetoric Polyptoton Examples: to show the reader the internal consistency of a thing - Piper, pipe that song again. - William Blake - I have been a stranger in a strange land - Moses - Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. - Matt 6:11 Example: to highlight the internal incongruity of a thing - But me no Buts -- Be gone, - Susanna Centlivre - Not as a call to battle, though embattled we are. - John F. Kennedy - Who shall watch the watchmen themselves - Juvenal - Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle - Shakespeare (layered with isocolon) - Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds. - Shakespeare (layered with isocolon) - Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. - Shakespeare Effect: to sound clever by equivocating and showing different meanings of the same word. - Please Please Me - Lennon/McCartney