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Tricolon
to use three parallel elements of similar length or structure in a series; from the Greek tri 'three' and kolon 'clause'; also known as triad

Examples

Chevrolet Slogan
Eye it, try it, buy it.
Unknown
Lies, damned lies and statistics
P.G. Wodehouse
The kid is a pest, a wart and a pot of poison.
Benjamin Franklin
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
Quentin Crisp
If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.
Picture

Purpose

The Magic of Threes
We use the tricolon to give lists of items. Audiences expect a natural list of three items. Two is too few. Four is too many.
Tricolon has a natural up ↗, up ↗, down ↘ intonation pattern. Up ↗ means 'more information follows'. Down ↘ means 'the information is complete'.
Margaret Thatcher
Soviet Marxism is ideo↗logically, po↗litically and morally ↘bankrupt.
Three is a magic number in composition. Winston Churchill loved the tricolon. He said the following in his first speech to parliament as prime minister in 1940.
Churchill in the Commons
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
But Churchill later revised this for the radio broadcast. Try reading both aloud. Three is the more natural pattern.
Churchill on the Radio
I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears.
The reason why three items improve on two or four is because of the semiology of the numbers 1, 2 and 3.
The Semiotics of 1, 2 and 3
The numbers 1, 2 and 3 are important in thought and composition. They associate with signs, cognition and figures of speech.
'1' Means Superlative
the surest way
the best answer
the weakest link
the greatest hits
the longest river
the only solution
the best example
the main problem
the richest person
the meaning of life
the best-selling record

advertisements have a single message

essays argue a single thesis statement

prose and poetry have a most important message
'2' Means Relationship
similarity to and difference from

Binaries
fat-thin
hot-cold

up-down
Us-Them
rich-poor
war-peace
old-young

past-future
heaven-hell

right-wrong
pure-impure
male-female
father-mother
forward-backward

synonym-antonym
'3+' Means Complexity
3 is the minimum number needed to produce a list, taxonomy or simplification of complexity.

Awards
gold, silver & bronze medals
first prize, second prize & runner-up

Laws & Heuristics
Aristotle's three appeals
Newtons three laws of motion
the three laws of thermodynamics
 the high, middle & low style in rhetoric
the formal, informal & familiar registers in grammar
the ideational, experiential & logical functions in systemic functional grammar
'1' associates with figures of expansion and contraction.
'2' associates with figures of similarity and difference.
'3' associates with the tricolon.
Lists come in threes because three is the easiest way to simplify complexity. And humans want complexity simplified. People care less about top-ten selections, but they may care about first choices, and maybe top-threes. Human culture and the human mind are tuned to the strange magic and rhythm of threes:
The Three Little Pigs
The Three Musketeers
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Good visual images conform to the rule of thirds.
The wicked stepmother visited Snow White three times.
Three wise men gave Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The numbers '2' and '3+' are also respectively associated with structuralist and post-structuralist thought.

Usage

Predictable Patterns of Three
Use three items in lists because three is natural. Put the three items also in equivalent structures. The 'equivalent structure' rule applies also to parallelism and isocolon. Something else we can do with these figures is to pair them or combine them with other figures.
Mars


"A
Mars a d
ay helps you work, rest and play
."

This slogan combines a tricolon of three verbs with short words, assonance and rhyme.
Barack Obama
Inaugural address, 2009

"My fellow citizens, I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors."

This tricolon combines adjectives with structurally different but symmetrical prepositional phrases.
Tricola build rhetorically sophisticated structures. But tricola persuade most effectively when the three elements follow logical patterns.
General-Specific Tricolon
Use the general-specific pattern to progress from less specific to more specific; subordinate to superordinate; abstraction to concreteness. Place the longest element last.
U.S. Declaration of Independence
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
'Liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness' is less effective because it violates the general-specific pattern.
Climactic Tricolon
Use the climactic or rising tricolon (tricolon crescens) to march your items toward climax. Think of how a symphony's final movement simmers, swells and finally crescendoes. Put the most significant and emotional item last. See also climax.
Charles Spencer's Eulogy to his Sister, Diana, Princess of Wales, BBC, 1997
President Barack Obama's Second Inaugural Address, 2013
"I stand before you today, the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning, before a world in shock."
"We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm."
Comic Tricolon
Subvert the tricolon rules for laughter.
P.G. Wodehouse
There were three things in the world that he held in the smallest esteem: slugs, poets and caddies with hiccups.
(This amuses because it subverts the expected interrelationship of tricolon elements.)

Joke
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Rabbi walk into a bar. The Rabbi stops and says, 'Wait a minute! I'm in the wrong joke here!'
(This subverts the genre of the Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman joke.)
Tricolon & Other Figures
As with parallelism, we can combine tricola with other figures for sophisticated effects.
Tony Blair
It means exposing as the rubbish it is, the propaganda about America and its allies wanting to punish Muslims or eradicate Islam. It means championing our values of freedom, tolerance and respect for others. It means explaining why the suppression of women and the disdain for democracy are wrong.
This combines tricola with anaphora and parallelism.
The tricolon is a persuasive and easy figure of speech to use. Barack Obama used it over twenty times in his 2008 victory speech.
Obama victory speech, Chicago, 2008
© 2015 Danyal Freeman