# Literary Devices

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-devices/782748>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 22, 2017, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-devices/782748 "2017-03-22T12:05:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Brian\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@Brian\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brian_K)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-devices/782748/1 "2017-03-22T12:05:33Z")

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Is there a literary device or word to describe phrases such as patronizing patron or womanizing woman? I guess it’s technically alliteration, but I thought there may be something to describe specific phrases like those. Any help would be appreciated.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-devices/782748/2 "2017-03-22T21:06:14Z")

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Tautology.

Biblical Hebrew is rife with similar verbal constructions: חלמתי חלום _halamti halom_ ’ ‘I dreamed a dream’ and sentences like that.

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**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-devices/782748/3 "2017-03-22T21:14:57Z")

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> [@Johanna](#):
>
> Tautology.

I don’t think that fits what the OP is talking about. If (as at least one online dictionary states) a tautology is “the saying of the same thing twice in different words,” the OP’s examples are sort of the opposite of this: saying different things using the same words. A patron isn’t necessarily patronizing; a woman isn’t necessarily womanizing.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-devices/782748/4 "2017-03-22T21:19:21Z")

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A sort of condensed parallelism, then?

Or—how about [anaphora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaphora_(rhetoric))?

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-devices/782748/5 "2017-03-22T21:25:21Z")

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Or [antanaclasis or epizeuxis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_(rhetorical_device))? Or something like diaphora.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-devices/782748/6 "2017-03-22T21:32:20Z")

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Never mind—I have it: [polyptoton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyptoton).  
Something quite similar to polyptoton is—it turns out—the name for the Hebrew thing where the direct object matches the verb: [cognate object](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate_object).