Polysyndeton In rhetoric, the use of several conjunctions in succession. How do you suppose the meaning changes when one says, "..lions and tigers and wolves and sheep," instead of "lions, tigers, wolves, and sheep?" It seems that politicians use this device to make themselves seem more bombastic. What do you think?

I think all those conjuntions together would make them seem less grandiloquent and remind their audience of the Wizard of Oz... Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

my thoughts exactly !

Very interesting question, Asa, and I do hope that you continue with these bonus words posts. I love them!

Besides also thinking that you ought to have said "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!", from my perspective the "and" gives equality to the subjects, while the comma merely cites them all. For example, today in a meeting were were discussing the mission of our organization (yes, Richard, that is still being discussed!), and there was a sentence saying that we "...advance excellence in regulation for our member boards and others in health care..." Some of us disagreed with that because it gave equality to our member boards (our customers) and "others in health care". While certainly we collaborate with "others", they should not be equivalent to our customers in our mission statement. Yet, many of us felt the "and" did that.

A rhetoric site, which I've now added to our "Links" section, explains this use of many conjunctions often serves to slow the tempo or rhythm. It give this example:

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I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark andthere was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out andfound my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.
—Ernest Hemingway, After the Storm.

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Alternate terms for polysyndeton, it says, are polysyntheton, polisindeton, and polysindeton.

The opposite of polysyndeton, that is, the absence of conjunctions, is called asyndeton.

Does anyone else fondly recall the children's story about hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats?

Two other effects of the polysyndeton structure, for me at least, is that it lends more emphasis to the items and that (as in the Hemingway example) it reflects oral speech, making the text more immediate. Listen closely next time someone tells you a story. Notice how s/he strings the sentences together using 'and'.

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Originally posted by Hic et ubique:
Does anyone else fondly recall the children's story about _hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats?_

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Most definitely. As soon as I hit the lottery, I will become that person (I remember all the cats but there was a human in some sort of semi-charge, wasn't there?) with a second domicile for an equal number of dogs.

While I appreciate the fact that I am occasionally told that I am a "people person" I must confess to prefering the company of dogs and cats. It seems that they more closely share my sense of humor and outlook in general than most people, though what this might say about me I choose not to ponder at any great length...

“Once upon a time there was a very old man and a very old woman. They lived in a nice clean house which had flowers all around it except where the door was. But they couldn’t be happy because they were so very lonely.

‘If we only had a cat!’ sighed the very old woman.’ ”

So the very old man set out on a quest to find the perfect cat to bring home to his wife. Unfortunately this indiscriminate old fool exhibited very little impulse control and brought back every cat he came across. And, yes, there were millions of them, every single one as pretty as the next.

“Pretty soon the very old woman saw them coming. ‘My dear!’ she cried, “What are you doing? I asked for one little cat, and what do I see? — Cats here, cats there, cats and kittens everywhere, hundreds of cats, thousands of cats…” Well you know the rest.

“ ‘But we can never feed them all,’ said the very old woman, ‘They will eat us out of house and home.’

‘I never thought of that,’ said the very old man, ‘What shall we do?’ ”

The old woman proposed that the cats decide which one should be kept. The old man presented the following challenge to the cats: “Which one of you is the prettiest?”

What ensued is probably the largest catfight in all of children’s literature. (Unless you include the bickering between Cinderella’s stepsisters.) The outcome? All the cats vanished. Presumed eaten. Consumed by their own vanity. All save one scrawny, unattractive kitten who survived the cat-astrophe simply because it had a self-esteem problem and did not assert itself as the prettiest.

So, the elderly couple took in this lone survivor and loved and nurtured it despite its shortcomings. Eventually, the homely kitten, the beneficiary of the couple’s love and attention, blossomed into “a very pretty cat, after all.”

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Originally posted by is completely nuts!:
Eventually, the homely kitten, the beneficiary of the couple’s love and attention, blossomed into “a very pretty cat, after all.”

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The way I recall the story, it ended up turning into a swan but, then again, I used to enjoy reading literature of this sort while in a doobie-enhanced state of mind so my memory may not be totally trustworthy.