Date: Wed Mar 21 00:11:14 EST 2001
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--asyndeton
asyndeton (uh-SIN-di-ton, -tuhn) noun

The omission of conjunctions, as in "I came, I saw, I conquered."

[From Late Latin, from Greek, from neuter of asyndetos, not linked, from a-
+ syndetos, bound together, from syndein, to bind together, from syn- + dein to bind.]

"The unwillingness to waste words shows up in the address's telegraphic quality--the omission of coupling words, a technique rhetoricians call asyndeton. Triple phrases sound as to a drumbeat, with no `and' or `but'
to slow their insistency: `We are engaged... We are met... We have come...'"
The Words That Remade America: Lincoln at Gettysburg, The Atlantic(Boston), Jun 1992.