For the parts of sentences doing the same work—signaled
by the conjunctions and, or, but—repeating the grammatical
structures adds balance and often picks up rather than smothers the cadence.
You've already seen this in many of the foregoing sections. Here, I extend
it to something more than a word.
Just to be hired, he may have to take a drug test,
a lie-detector test (though this is now limited to certain
fields), and a psychological test.
Article (a), adjective (drug, lie-detector,
psychological), noun (test)—with all three repeated,
the list is more memorable than anything varied structures or varied
words would evoke.
There is the same delight in the great game
of espionage, the same malevolent eye for human weakness,
the same creeping sense of despair at finding oneself on
the wrong side of history.
It is everywhere, it is cheap, and it
is, above all, open.
White pine is too soft, he reasons, maple
is too sleek, oak is too ordinary.
