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    Tuesday
    Nov082005

    Now, That Was a War

    DateTuesday, November 8, 2005 at 04:36PM

    mrsminiver.gifQuote:  "It is our war! We are the fighters! Fight it, then! Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right."  The vicar in the 1942 film "Mrs. Miniver."

    Figure of Speech:  conduplicatio (con doo plih CAT io), repetition of the same word.

    The vicar’s conduplicatio (Latin for "doubling") repeats the word "fight" in a couple of ways for emphasis.  They're in the movie's last lines; according to the American Film Institute, President Roosevelt liked them so much "that he ordered them printed on millions of leaflets and dropped over Nazi-occupied Europe."

    The Nazis may have preferred to see the film.

    Snappy Answer:  Sing "Onward Christian Soldiers." At least, that's what they did in the movie.  (Though don't its lyrics say "marching as to war," not "off to war"?

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