The Recursive

Repetitive words or ideas are indeed one of a writer's and a philosopher's favourite toys. But why would you want to repeat what you have just said? There are many reasons:

1. To make clear
This is quite obvious. When someone you talk to don't understand, you will repeat your statement. On a related note, in literature there is something we call motifs, which are recurring elements in a literary work that help to develop themes. This is more intangible, since motifs can be anything from prop, setting, words, sentences, ideas, characters, etc. Human minds always look for patterns to make sense of a coherent whole. One of the reasons we can't stand randomness.
(Notably, the Hindus chant their mantras repetitively over and over. Since their purpose is to attain enlightenment, I see it as they savour the meaning of a statement over and over. Every possible meaning, every possible nuances, until every possible essence is considered and eventually the teachings become clear to them. So I put this under this section.)

2. To emphasise
Related to #1 but goes a step further. Rather than making unclear things clear, we are making things already clear clearer. A rather clear example is this very statement and the one before -- clear?

3. To deliver impact
Still related to #1 and #2. My favourite is a line from Churchill's speech:

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.
-- Winston Churchill

Note the emphasis on we and fight. Try to remove the repetition and you will see that the impact is much lesser. By repeating the active voice, Churchill infused sense of belonging and raised the morale of the British in the war against the Germans.

Another example is by Wilfred Owen in Disabled:

Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He drought of jewelled hills
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
-- Wilfred Owen, Disabled, lines 30-36

Although the syntax is deceptively similar to #6 (later in the post), 'fears of Fear' doesn't indicate the superlative 'fear'. Rather, the repetition enhances the effect of the personification 'Fear'. Let me explain:
When the first letter of a word is capitalised, it is like a name of a person, so we say that the word is personified. Other notable examples would be 'Mother Nature' and 'Death'. Think of those two words carefully -- if you are imaginative maybe you will conjure images of benevolent mother and grim reaper. So you see, personification firstly changes the status of the intangible to the tangible. Fear, nature, death -- those are abstract concepts and are difficult to picture. What personification does is giving them bodies -- embodying them in real objects, bringing them from imaginary to real plane. What's more, they are not just tangible objects, but persons. With personalities, with emotions, with will, with mind; it's a Being. So, personification, when used appropriately (like what Owen did), is a very powerful tool.
Owen refers to the ultimate form of fear in the battlefield. This is perhaps one of the things that people who never experience war, including myself, understand. But if you read Owen, you would somewhat get a glimpse of it: the graphic enormity of war. The soldier in Disabled didn't understand this also, until it was too late. The ultimate Fear, which should be feared for your own good.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
-- Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est, lines 17-24

There is another way of making impact: make a monotony first so that a sudden break from it would be blatant. It is indeed a dualism paradox where something exciting requires something boring first.

4. To indicate recursive property
What do you call your grandfather's father? Great-grandfather? How about moving up a hundred generations? Easy: Great-(101x)grandfather.
What do you call a square of a number? A zenzic. What do you call a square of a square of a square of a number? Zenzizenzizenzic. I'm not pulling your leg -- it's the word which has the most z's in English.
On a similar note, speed is the rate of change of distance, acceleration is the rate of change of speed. So acceleration is the rate of change of rate of change of distance (one of my students was very amused by this). It's a pity the physicists didn't have the sense of humour like the mathematicians to coin a similarly recursive term for acceleration.

Let's take a detour and see about other languages:
5. To express plurality
Certain languages, instead of modifying their nouns, prefer to repeat them to indicate amount of more than one. For example, in the Malay/Indonesian language, the word 'person' would be translated 'orang' while 'people' would be 'orang-orang'. A very regularised modification, unlike a certain language in which the modification follows a rule but not always consistent.

6. To indicate the superlative
This should be quite a known fact to Christians. In the Hebrew language, it is one way to express superlative as such: X of Xs. So for instance 'the wine of wines' means the wine superior to any other wines. This syntax may seem logical when we say 'king of kings' and 'lord of lords' but befuddling when we say 'people of peoples'. This is because nouns like 'king' and 'lord' already imply superlativity in their meanings, so this Hebrew syntax works when such nouns are used but otherwise sounds strange in English.

Now, for the reasons less obvious:
7. To confuse
'Huh? Isn't this contrary to #1?' you ask. Actually to be more exact, it is to prompt people to ponder about things but sometimes if you think too much you get confused. A fine line between philosophical musings and clueless rants indeed.

Since this is an area of philosophy, let's have Plato:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
-- Juvenal

Plato questioned Socrates "who will watch the watchmen?" in The Republic. This is a very common question when we are talking about society structure, morality and laws. This invites us to think: those who ensure adherence to the law -- who will make sure they themselves adhere to the law?

Moving on to epistemology. Look at the following dialogue:

A: Some people don't know what they don't know.
B: But if something is unknown, how can you possibly know it?
A: What I mean is, you know certain things -- those form the body of your knowledge, correct? You should realise that there are gaps missing here and there in your body of knowledge. Those are those that, when you learn of them, you would know that they will fit the gaps.
It is like a game of jigsaw puzzle. When you almost finish it, you don't know what the missing pieces look like, but at least you know their shapes. And when the pieces fit snugly in the gaps, you know that those are the missing pieces.
B: Ah, so you mean that there are people don't even realise that there are gaps in their understanding?
A: Precisely. That's why the quest for knowledge is neverending. The gaps are always there, getting finer and finer, too microscopic to the untrained eyes. But I hope someday our understanding will be complete, not even a sliver of truth excluded.

Makes you think twice, doesn't it? Perhaps another one?

In the above dialogue, B knows that A knows that B knows that A knows...that B already knows what A means.

Confused enough?
There's a poem titled 'thinking I think I think' by Charles Bernstein. Before you click the link, brace yourselves, for the poem is discombobulating as the title is ungrammatical.
Bordering on that delicate tipsy tightrope walk between, how about:

And the biggest self of self is, indeed, self; that sin is, in fact, grounded in this notion of what is it that I want as opposed to somebody else?
-- Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, addressing his extramarital affair on June 24, 2009, as transcribed by Federal News Service. (Source)

And what is that supposed to mean? I'm as clueless as the next guy.
Next, reverse psychology. In one passage I read, a villain is having a monologue: "What can you do to make a person doubt a truth?" He answered himself, "Simply tell the truth."
Essentially, this is reverse psychology. The villain is perceived as someone who is not likely to tell the truth, thus his words are doubted. But this kind of assumption is utilised by the villain.
To complicate matters, there is reverse-reverse psychology, where the hero is as clever as the villain and expects the villain to use reverse psychology. In this case the villain may try to speak as such that he sounds like using reverse psychology, while in fact he is not. He simply lies.
Taking the mind game further -- the pattern should be clear by now -- there is reverse-reverse-reverse psychology and so on, but alas, I'm getting recursive.
8. To entertain
While repetition is a proper rhetoric device, linguists are wary of redundancy. To what extent is a repetition redundant? I'm not answering that question, instead I will mention repetitions that are clearly redundant but funny.
Put up your hands: Who among you are guilty of using redundant 'ATM machine' and 'PIN number' in daily conversations? Oh my, we are all suffering from RAS syndrome. As you can read in the Wikipedia article, RAS syndrome is a mockingly funny, yet most suitable, name for the phenomenon.

9. To make a pun
Homonymic pun is a perfect excuse for repetition; words that don't mean the same thing but look the same or at least similar. So at the heart of it, it's not really repetition per se, since the meanings of the words are different. See comment section for example.

Finally, if you're still not clear on recursiveness, click here.

Tear-stained

That day on a still park
Near a fountain, I was sitting on a bench next to an old lady
Gazing at the statue at the centre of the fountain
Of a woman -- covered at appropriate places -- gazing back at me
The old lady was reading the morning paper
Everything about her was grey
Grey attire, grey paper, grey much like the greyish-blue sky
and the grey clouds, behind which the sun was hiding
I curled, lifting my knees to touch my cheeks, about to doze off
The old lady took out a handkerchief to wipe her tears, the paper still on her lap
A long sniffle.

I needn't to ask her why -- I read it
Another brutality, another atrocity, another crack at the Dam of tears
A baby thrown away down the garbage chute, its orifices teeming with ants
A young suicide bomber blasting off in the middle of town
A girl finally succumbing to death seven hours after her last wish was granted
A rape of a woman; a rape of a nation
Body parts scattered in the Atlantic
It makes the heart of everyone who has it
bleeds

The handkerchief can soak up her tears
-- How about
the blood shed
the innocence snatched
the scar incurred
on the body and the soul --
What can?

A chill drizzle comes
though it feels warm like tears
steadily gaining momentum
I look at the tear-stained paper:
creased and crumpled
drop by drop the paper is getting wet.
I look at the tear-stained face:
weathered by time, creased and crumpled
by sorrow and anguish
drop by drop the face is getting wet.
Even the statue is weeping:
Something flows beneath its eyes
pigeonshit and rainwater mingling
Everything is crying --
the lady, the heaven, the statue
How can I not be?

The Art of Kissing

Do you ever wonder why we kiss? What is it that causes us to pucker and lock lips, exchange saliva (and colonies of bacteria), and intertwine tongues (sometimes).
A little search in the Net reveals a few hypotheses: social conditioning, instinct -- remnant from when mothers feed chewed food to the young, pheromone sensing, etc.
Social conditioning means that the behaviour passes from generation to generation. Considering that there are indigenous tribes not known to have kissing culture, this may be true. But then again, kissing may be too private to talk about or to be observed -- so it is not final that the behaviour is non-existent. Also, some animals, specifically primates, are also known to exhibit osculation (that's the technical term for kissing).
The pheromone sensing is an interesting theory. When we are talking about pheromone in humans, usually we don't mean it literally, since there is no specific hormone in us attracting the opposite sex to mate -- unlike insects, where pheromones mean just that. Some research papers suggest that somehow women can distinguish men with better genes. From the evolution point of view, this of course means that the offspring is more likely to be fit. Now, this obscure sensing may be the sum of the experience -- the man's height, his symmetrical face, his way of talking reflecting good education, his toned muscles -- the sum of it all may be the said metaphorical pheromone, the attraction, physically or otherwise. I believe that intuition can be reasoned out in a similar way. There are numerous little circumstances that you consider subconsciously -- the sum of it all, the conclusion, is what we call intuition. But I digress.
Since we are talking about "sensing the good genes" here, it is worth-noting that kissing involves a great deal of our senses. All our five senses -- visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory -- are hosted on our heads, so isn't it logical that we keep our heads close to each other when decrypting each other's pheromone signalling?
Why the lips, though? Well, if you have ever seen the picture of a sensory homunculus, it is obvious that a lot of sensory nerve endings are located on the lips and the tongue (about 21%). A significant portion is also located, of course, on the fingertips.
Indeed "why the mouth?" is a good question. Consider that a lot of metaphors of copulation are related to eating -- consummation, devour, eat you up. Also consider why cunnilingus and fellatio and a plethora of similar activities are practised.
To answer this question we have to consider symbolic significance of the mouth. The mouth is a passage to let something in; that something will be a part of the self. Considering this, it is not that far-fetched to describe kissing as letting the other party have a taste of ourselves, making a little of ourselves to be a part of somebody else's. This is a little bit different from copulation, since here, both parties are equal in the give-and-take.
So: a kiss is a complex exchange of information. Even enlightenment can be transmitted.
Deep.

Pun 101

When talking about context, I couldn't help but think of puns. Let me start off by saying that there are a lot of theories about why funny things are funny. What I'm focusing here is puns, which is just a subset of all things funny (or lame -- depends) and what role context plays. Again, language and philosophy hand-in-hand.
Puns basically makes use of ambiguity. This is where context comes into play. If you remember about ambiguity between lambda and rù (λ), you will see that we need to choose the right context to ascertain meaning. What makes puns humorous is the confusion of this choice of contexts. let's have an example:

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Now, the quote says exactly what it says: if you don't understand binary, you won't get the joke; the joke is on you. Of course, the first time reading this you will establish a context, like it or not (since we already argued earlier that for something to have a meaning, it has to rest on a context plane). Well, the context that we established is that "10" is ten, in base ten, as is commonly the case. The pun here confuses the context of base ten and to understand the quote we have to change our context to base two, as hinted ("binary"). Ah, now it makes sense -- "10" is actually two if we convert it to base ten.
Most theorists agree that this unsuspecting element is one of the core elements of all things funny. So: several contexts exist, we chose the most likely one, but oh no, actually it is the other context. This "oh no" part is the surprise element, the unexpected, making connections between contexts that are previously not usually thought to be connected. Daniel Dennet argued that as a reward for making this connection, we fall into fit of laughter. This is certainly an interesting theory since laughter has been proven to have physiological benefits, so it is not far-fetched to call it a reward. I would like very much to address the many theories of humour, but that is another story.
Let's have another pun:

When Mozart passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Mozart was buried.
Terrified, the drunk ran and got the town magistrate to come and listen to it.
When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Mozart's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."
He listened a while longer, and said, "There's the Eighth Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling."
So the magistrate kept listening; "There's the Seventh... the Sixth... the Fifth..." Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, "My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Mozart decomposing."

You can immediately see that the punchline is the two meanings of "decomposing": rotting away and the opposite of composing a symphony. It should be noted that the contexts surrounding the two meanings are not really confused -- more like they are fused. Of course the correct course of nature is for a human to rot away in a grave, but a strange phenomenon happened: the backward playing of Mozart's works; both ultimately point to the word "decomposing".
In this light, you can see that rebus puzzles are a kind of pun, too.
Here are few examples (source):Mouseover for answers. Again, there are two meanings, those represented by the arrangement of the visual cues on the puzzle and the other is a common phrase/sentence -- both should point to the same phrase/sentence. Do you see it?
Now, let's talk about categorisation. Language is not only spoken, but written; so it should be no surprise that besides homonymic puns, there are homophonic ones. Homonyms are words with the same spelling but different meanings, like "decomposing". Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelt differently. Example for a homophonic pun:

A: What is the difference between a prince and a ball?
B: A prince is heir to the throne; a ball is thrown to the air.

Needless to say, this is about the similar pronunciations between "heir" and "air" as well as between"throne" and "thrown". There are several other categorisation, such as the rebus puzzle case, in which the arrangement of the visual cues are not really "words", so it cannot be categorised under homonymic -- but in principle, puns revolve around ambiguity of meanings -- this can arise from the same spelling, the same sound, etc.
On a related note, there is a category of homophonic puns called mondegreens. Perhaps they should not be called puns, because mostly, they are not intended. Basically a mondegreen is a misinterpretation of a line because it sounds similar to something else. Sylvia Wright proposed this term because as a child she hear a poem which has a line "And laid him on the green" but she misinterpreted it as "And Lady Mondegreen". So you can see that Mondegreen itself is a mondegreen (this is kind of recursive, isn't it?). I can recall a recent example, which perhaps should be called reverse mondegreen or intended mondegreen. In other words, it's a genuine pun. Language Log dubbed it the worst pun of all time, even. Here it is:

Lastly, let's have puns about puns that I shamelessly plagiarise from Wikipedia:

"The pun is mightier than the word." — original source unknown
(Pun and word: plays on "pen" and "sword", in the saying "The pen is mightier than the sword".)
"A pun is its own reword." — Dance Drier, British comedian
(Reword: pun on "reward", from the saying "Virtue is its own reward".)
"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted." — Fred Allen
(Quoted: pun on "quartered", an old form of capital punishment.)
"Immanuel doesn't pun; he Kant." — Oscar Wilde
(Kant: play on "can't", in the name of philosopher Immanuel Kant)

So punny.

Love is a loaded word

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore
-- L-O-V-E, Milt Gabler

"Love is a loaded word". This particular statement from a show is really unforgettable. Perhaps because it reminds me of something I read before about the Greeks, who have four different words for love. A concept so difficult to grasp, to the extent that some people may never find what it really is in their lifetime; unfathomably deep and wide like an ocean, crammed inside a four-letter word?
'Loaded' is an understatement.
Let us digress a bit and talk about epistemological view of language, especially words. We often overlook the fact that words are actually containers of meaning, not the meanings themselves. That a word is not identical to the thing it signifies may seem obvious, but give it a little more thought. Let's have a quote, then, appropriately from a play with a theme of love:

Juliet:
What's in a name? That which we call a rose(45)
By any other name would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,(50)
Take all myself.

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii)

The word 'rose' is a label, which the speakers of English agree to call the flower as such. And of course Juliet is in love with the person Romeo, not caring about his family name Montague.
With this in mind, imagine the thing which we label 'love'.
Not easy, isn't it? I, a non-native English speaker myself, often wonder about why the word is so short when the meaning it encompasses is really vast. And why the lack of alternative expressions. Sure we have some: infatuation, concupiscence, amorousness, even artificial term like limerence. Yet those can be considered not of equal magnitude compared to 'love'. Moreover, the low frequency of usage of those in daily conversation alone should be enough evidence of that.
The Greeks themselves are well-known for having four words for love, thanks to C.S. Lewis. These are: eros, storge, philia and agape. Roughly, eros is physical attraction; storge, affection; philia, liking; agape, unconditional love. It should be noted that the word philia occurs in philosophy (love for wisdom), hydrophilic (affinity to water), etc. You can see that philia itself is also an umbrella term for general 'liking'. It goes without saying that 'erotic' comes from eros (C.S. Lewis asserts that eros is not necessarily sexual, though). As for agape, let's take a look at one of the most famous verses in the Bible:

¹⁶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-- John 3:16, KJV

The Greek word that John uses here is agape. So agape is the ultimate form of love, unconditional and sacrificial; the love of God. The greatest love of all, if you may.
The Japanese also have at least three expressions for love: ai (愛), koi (恋) and suki (好き). 'Suki' actually pretty much means 'like', but this is actually the expression used when you intend to date a person. This may seem strange, but this is the culture. In Japanese language, straightforwardness is discouraged. Intentions are revealed in subtle manner. This is also generally true for most Asian cultures. I also read that aishiteru (愛してる) is only said when the couple is at the stage serious enough to marry (perhaps this one is outdated though. It was quite a few years back). From my research, it appears that 'ai' may cover philia and agape -- love in general, while 'koi' is closer to eros or limerence.
I won't bother you with the problem of 'liebe' in German, though, since I don't dabble in German that much (here, and here if you are interested). Most people know 'ich liebe dich' -- wait, do you really?
So there you have it. This crazy little thing called love is certainly not little in any way -- 'love' is loaded, literally. I think it is really underhanded whenever you say 'I love you', since that word covers almost everything anyway, swept clean under the rug.
Pause and think about which love, and don't make the wrong choice.