常言說：“謊言重復一千遍就變成真理"。在某種程度上 ，這句話說明了語言刻意的重復，會造成強烈的修辭效果。

在英語閱讀中經常碰到這種刻意的重復。它有點像中文里的排比句，卻更隨意和多元。它不僅僅是語匯的重復，還可以是語法結構的重復。從語法結構上看，這種重復幾乎可以發生在任何部分。

主語的重復：

He could open a can of paint. He could mix paint, thin paint, remove paint. He could chop wood and measure things with a ruler. He knew how to build fires. He could dig holes, and he had a real gift for bringing water for them both in cans and canteens from the tanks near the mess hall. He could engross himself in an inconsequential task for hoyurs without growing restless or bored, as oblivious to fatigue as the stump of a tree, and almost as tacitum.

賓語的重復：

下面這個句子中，一個動詞后面連續帶有9個不同的詞匯作為賓語：

Every man suddenly became related to Kino’s pearl, and Kino’s pearl went into the dreams, the speculations, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers, of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino, so that he became every man’s enemy.

類似的賓語重復：

As a soldier who had qualified for aviation cadet training, he had weeks and weeks of wanting for assignment to a class, weeks and weeks more to become a bombardier-navigator, weeks and weeks more of operational training after that to prepare him for overseas duty.

下面的句子則是作為定語的介詞短語和作為補語的形容詞的重復：

That means listening to music of all schools and all periods, old and new, conservative and modern.

還可以在同一段落中出現不同結構的重復：

Works indeed of genius fall under no art; heroic minds come under no rule; a university is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or conquerors of nations. It does not promise a generation of Aristotles or Newtons, of Napoleons or Washingtons, of Raphaels or Shakespeares, though such miracles of nature it has before now contained within its precincts.

介詞短語的重復：

To the average American, such life events as death of spouse, death of close family members, dismissal from work, change to different line of work and change in number of arguments with spouse can cause greater stress on the part of those people involved in the United States than on those from other countries.

動賓結構的重復：

Hungary Joe ate voraciously, gnawed incessantly at the tips of his fingers, stammered, choked, itched, sweated, salivated, and sprang from spot to spot fanatically with an intricate black camera with which he was always trying to take pictures of naked cirls.

不定式短語too...to...結構的重復：

They were lovely, satisfying, maddening manifestations of the miraculous, instruments of pleasure too powerful to be measured, too keen to be endured, and too exquisite to be intended for employment by base, unworthy man.

狀語+定語的重復：

He was a very serious, very earnest and very conscientious dope.

還有完整的近似句子的重復：

Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

狀語從句的重復：

When he turned to his teammates, he encountered a reef of curious reflective faces all gazing at him woodenly with morose and inscrutable animosity. He shivered with shame. When the game resumed, it was not good any longer. When he dribbled, no one tried to stop him; when he called for a pass, whoever had the ball passed it; and when he missed basket, no one raced him for the rebound.

混合重復：

He wondered often how he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.

無論是哪一種結構的重復，都達到一種強調，加重語氣，引起關注的語言效果。閱讀者可以感到一種明顯的語言張力撲面而來。

如此看來，不一定要重復一千遍，謊言才變成真理。只消重復十來八次，任何語言都會變成真理！