Repetition at Work

"Free at last! Free at last!" 

Civil rights march on Washington DC 1963 

by staff photographer of U.S. News & World Report, Library of Congress. 

Image is in the Public Domain {{PD-USGov}}

Consciously or intuitively, we frequently use repetition to emphasize, connect, contrast, and compare–or for humor and other rhetorical or literary effects.[1] While too much repetition may become boring, or suggest careless editing, the occasional repetition of a word or a few words in a passage of speech or writing can also help simulate the informality of conversation–probably because we often repeat words in everyday talk.

We've long recognized that carefully crafted repetition, especially with variation, powerfully reinforces–for good or ill. Teachers of classical rhetoric in Ancient Greece and Rome from about the fifth century BC–and more widely since–advocate strategic use of repetition, through choice from a battery of rhetorical devices with different effects.[2] These include commonly used anaphora, antistasis, commoratio, or diacope.[3] [video here] 

A nineteenth century guide to composition recommended that "A frank repetition of a word has even sometimes a kind of charm–as bearing the stamp of truth, the foundation of all excellence of style."[4] 

Some nuances of this truth effect are explored in more recent psychology research. Apparently "people judge repeated information as truer than new information." Researchers also find "People consider that others are more susceptible...than themselves, and underestimate the impact of repetition on judgments of truth."[5] This all seems to confirm "Repeating information increases people's belief that the repeated information is true."[6]

Propagandists intuitively understand this power of repetition. As Jacques Ellul points out, the "endless repetition of formulas, explanations, and simple stimuli" erodes "scorn and disbelief."[7] However foolish we might initially believe some nonsense to be, its repetitive use focuses both conversation and actions.[8] 

When journalists and others in the media repeatedly quote verbatim the egregious lies or nonsense of propagandists, this just helps to advance a propagandist's name, identity, and style–which inevitably increases the significance of the rants and ramblings.[9]

Former editors or journalists and the large number of readers or viewers cancelling media subscriptions seem more concerned about this than many in the media.[10]

References

1. Jeanne Fahnestock (2011), Rhetorical Style: The Uses of Language in Persuasion, New York: Oxford University Press

2. Fahnestock, pp. 320-327

3. Luís Azevedo (Director) and Mark Forsyth (Writer) (2020), What Makes a Movie Line Memorable? Diacope, Little White Lies - https://lwlies.com/ video at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo5Ikx3F5ak

4. Richard Nordquist (2023), "Definition and Examples of Repetition in Writing," ThoughtCo, April 5, https://www.thoughtco.com/repetition-language-and-rhetoric-1691887

5. Simone Mattavelli, Jérémy Bena, Olivier Corneille, and Christian Unkelbach (2024), "People Underestimate the Influence of Repetition on Truth Judgments (and More So for Themselves than for Others)," Cognition, 242, January, 105651,  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027723002858; also Preprint, April 2023, "Repetition Increases Perceived Truth of Interpersonal Statements from Both Politically Congruent and Incongruent Sources," https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369858247_People_underestimate_the_influence_of_repetition_on_truth_judgments_and_more_so_for_themselves_than_for_others

6. Felix Speckmann and Christian Unkelbach (2024), "Illusions of Knowledge Due to Mere Repetition," Cognition, 247, April, 10579,  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027724000775

7. Jacques Ellul (1965), Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, New York: Knopf, p. 312

8. Rodney G. Miller (2024), Get Ahead of Propagandists: Countering Disinformation, Albany, NY: Parula, p. 14

9. Miller, p. 18-19

10. Zada, John (2021), Veils of Distortion: How the News Media Warps Our Minds, Toronto: Terra Incognita; Dan Gillmor (2024), "At Its Moment of Peril, Democracy Needs Journalists to Be Activists," Medium, July 2,  https://dangillmor.medium.com/at-its-moment-of-peril-democracy-needs-journalists-to-be-activists-8776aa9c99c3

Meaning More

Conversation

by Matt @ PEK from Taipei, Taiwan licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

From early in life, we are encouraged to be clear when speaking or writing. We put a lot of attention on specifying what we mean. We talk about words as delivering a message. Endless energies are expended trying to remove ambiguity, to magically bring everyone into alignment by crafting that perfect message.

This becomes especially noticeable during election campaigns. Politicians, media pundits, journalists, advertisers, and others talk about this or that candidate's message. They also quote catchy words or phrases, or paraphrase comments–with frequent reference to polls that supposedly report opinions of the pollster's invented audience "segments."

Some people even describe themselves selling us a message–apparently blind to the reality that "when we know the goal of communication is just to 'get a message out,' many of us understand intuitively that our views, feelings, or perspectives aren't considered important."[1] So much for that sales pitch.

Do we really believe that others receive just what we mean? It's still to be established that minds ever truly align. Each of us interprets and gives words meaning. It seems true that "Any text is open to countless interpretations and debates, and any word or phrase can connote and give rise to an infinity of other words."[2] 

Also apparent in everyday life, and no less during elections, is that everyone interprets messages very differently. It's natural enough to assume meaning is in the words we choose. But even dictionaries only record some common usage of words. As Noam Chomsky indicates "The most elaborate dictionaries provide no more than the bare hints about the meaning of words..."[3]

The continuous boosting of message transmission as a simple, but mistaken view of communication causes serious delusions. And audience analysts convince public figures and many organizations to pay expensively for opinion polls or even creepy "measurement" of physiological reactions to bits of speech among focus group participants. 

It was in the nineteenth century that the retailer John Wanamaker claimed "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half." It often remains hard to tell what if any part of an advertising budget may have value. Just as uncertain in a political campaign is predicting the outcome from the huge budgets and effort for mass media and digital advertising or political rallies and other publicity.

Likely, communication occurs when people jointly create new understanding and knowledge.[4] It's the to-and-fro of face-to-face, personal interaction that most aligns people. Likewise, in a political campaign, it's conversation, one-on-one, or with a few people at a time that provides the winning difference. 

In the final weeks of an election campaign, what really matters is engaging friends, neighbors, family, workmates, or others to stand together to help elect candidates who are committed to deliver real solutions. 

This is a time to ask what each of us can do to help defeat puffery.

References 

1. Rodney G. Miller (2022), "Developing the Culture of Trust,"  Communication Essays, Albany, NY: Parula, p. 19 

2. David Sless and Ruth Shrensky (2023), A New Semiotics: An Introductory Guide for Students, London and New York: Routledge, p. 98

3. Noam Chomsky (1993), Language and Thought, Kingston, RI: Moyer Bell, p. 23

4. Robyn Penman (2012), “On Taking Communication Seriously,” Australian Journal of Communication, 2012, 39(3), pp. 41-63,  academia.edu/6487224/On_taking_communication_seriously_Penman, p. 9

What's Weird

"Weird Al" Yankovic performing live... 2010 Tour 

by Kristine Slipson licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

Propagandists are weird. As far back as July 2021, this blog named the contemporary pseudo-populists in politics as "propagators of weird social beliefs."[1] Even then, the swill of truthiness, trash-talk, and outrageous screeches for the camera of these propagandists was so amplified that some perspective was required. 

The plea in later blog posts was that it is: 

...often safest and best to assume that a propagandist is weird, driven to develop extraordinary skills of self-preservation from probably a very early age, by a distorted commitment to being right and winning–at everything, by whatever means–including as an adult through remarkably protracted gaming of the legal system. All the lies, distortions, and dodges are tactics to prove to anyone who'll react that the propagandist is right and a winner, at your cost.[2]

Yet, the history of the word weird offers its own twists. Unsurprisingly with a living language, this word's story is, well, a bit weird.

Today, we mainly use weird to describe what's bizarre, cringeworthy, creepy, odd, peculiar, unusual, or eerie–with a strongly negative connotation. At the same time, Internet slang in its perversity can use weird to describe something unique or unconventional[3]–as a compliment, akin to how the word "Sick!" becomes a positive.

These are modern twists in the word's history from the Modern English period (c. 1500). In Middle English (c. 1100) connotations of the supernatural or uncanny were dominant. Mainly, before this, all the way back to the originally recorded Old English (c. 725), the word referred to fate or destiny and was often associated with supernatural or mystical beings.[4]

Other changes were to the word's spelling. The transition to "weird" came with the Anglo-Norman influence from the 1100s. Old Norse (c. 900) had adopted "urðr," referring to the fate or destiny of individuals–which was "often associated with the Norns, who controlled the destinies of gods and humans." Earlier, Old High German (c. 800) had ushered in the use of "wurt" in place of the original Old English "wyrd."[5] 

This etymological story might serve as a timely warning. It'd be unfortunate and confusing if the Old English referent for what's "wyrd" as fate or destiny was in current use. Thank goodness we give the most common, modern meaning to "weird." 

Its application to propagandists seems especially apt. What's really WEIRD are the obsessive energies of these zealots, who foment hate to target and marginalize any group not serving the propagandists' self-interest. 

Nothing mysterious or supernatural here–just cruel perversion and self-obsession. If there's any othering worth doing, in the spirit of George Orwell's urging,[6] what is needed are ongoing efforts at scale to drive the lies and drivel of propagandists "into the dustbin" where they belong.

References

1. Word to the Wise blog (2021), To Strengthen Democracy, July 30,  https://communicator.rodney-miller.com/2021/07/to-strengthen-democracy.html

2. Word to the Wise blog (2022), Certainty Claims, April 22,  https://communicator.rodney-miller.com/2022/04/certainty-claims.html

3. WikiEtymology (2024), "Etymology of Weird," https://wikietymology.com/w/etymology-of-weird/

4. WikiEtymology (2024)

5. WikiEtymology (2024)

6. George Orwell (1981), “Politics and the English Language,” A Collection of Essays, Orlando, FL: Harcourt, p. 171 [1^st published 1946]