Agnomination is a word scheme that replaces one word in a phrase with a similar sounding word that offers a contrast of meaning, often an antithesis. The scheme results a stark either/or premise with an “echo” effect.
The most famous example in modern oratory is Malcolm X’s “the ballot or the bullet” speech.
The use of agnomination is what makes the speech so special, reflecting on the “ballot” and “bullet”—two similar-sounding words with very different implications. It’s hard to imagine the speech landing quite the same way with the “vote” and the “bullet.”
But perhaps the most famous example of agnomination in English is “nature vs. nurture.” The phrase is so embedded in our scientific thinking that it hardly even feels like someone’s invention. But it is! British polymath Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the phrase in 1874. He knew what he was doing with the agnomination, calling the phrase “a convenient jingle of words.”
Taylor Coe 