Ah, anaphora, that old standby of politicians and speechwriters everywhere. Boy, do they love starting sentences with the same words over and over again.

Why do they do it? Because it's effective. Because it's stirring. Because it's memorable.

(See what we did there?)

Anaphora is a favorite tool of speechy people everywhere because it works. It's a classic. And as our mother would say, classics never go out of style.

We can see this anaphora in ana-action in sentences 11 through 15, which all begin with the phrase "last night." And sentence ten starts with the word "yesterday," which is along the same vein as "last night," as is sentence 16's opener: "this morning."

Just think about the effect this has. It totally brings home the fact that there were a bunch of attacks in a very short period of time.

It's also the verbal equivalent of an accusatory finger jab, especially when we consider that the next words in all of those sentences are either "Japanese forces attacked" or "the Japanese attacked" (11-13; 14).

Well, maybe sentence ten gets a little special treatment with "the Japanese government also launched an attack," but still (10). The effect is the same.

So basically, in six short sentences, we the audience are exposed to the news that Japan hasn't just bulldozed Pearl Harbor, it's also launched a mega-huge wave of death and destruction all over the dang Pacific.

No wonder 97% of Americans supported going to war. That anaphora is powerful stuff.