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Palin's Sentence Structure (not as dumb as it looks)

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You may have noticed a similarity between the odd sentence structures favored by our president and Sarah Palin.  It's no accident.  And it doesn't mean they are fools.  They are using a rhetorical technique (I forget the name) that banks on the fact that most folks aren't really paying attention.  The sentences don't matter.  It's the repetition of the idea that matters.  That's why you hear stuff about "and I didn't blink cuz when you are in such a situation you just can't blink and so I didn't blink because you shouldn't blink..."

When you are front and center paying attention it is utter nonsense.  But what about the folks who aren't really paying attention?  Well.  Their minds tend to just process those heavily-repeated portions of the sound bites.  Consciously or not.  If that sounds like subliminal messages, well, that's not too far from the mark. 



Comments (1)

The aim is to drain meaning from statements, and cause them to be evaluated purely for their emotional effect.
The rhetorical technique you might be thinking of is anaphora, the repetition of key words or phrases throughout a speech or text.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism

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