Tricolon: Wine, women and song!.

Good things come in threes. In China, the I Ching – their method of foretelling the future - depends on the number three. In Christianity the Godhead has three persons. The last Communist ruler of Poland, President Jaruzelski, had a three finger salute.

Saying three things instead of just leaving it as one thing at the end of a sentence strengthens your case.

One of the principal effects of this has been to associate – in the minds of the left – the concept of Zionism with the evils of massacre, empire and occupation.

That comes from Spiked Online. Without the tricolon – massacre, empire and occupation - the sentence is much weaker:

One of the principal effects of this has been to associate – in the minds of the left – the concept of Zionism with the evils of massacre. (A much weaker ending.)

Four things actually weaken the case. It gets tedious.

So eat, drink and be merry!

Watch “The good, the bad and the ugly.”

Quote Benjamin Disraeli: “Lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Jokes always (well nearly always) go in threes.

There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman.
A Scotsman, an Irishman, and an Englishman are each sentenced to a year in solitary confinement; before being locked away, each is to be granted a year's supply of whatever he wants to help him get through the long, long spell alone.
The Scotsman asks for a year's supply of whisky; it's given to him and he's locked away.
The Irishman asks for a year's supply of Guinness so he's locked up with several thousand bottles of it.
The Englishman asks for a year's supply of cigarettes and he's given a pile of cartons and the cell door is shut on him.
One year later, the doors are all unlocked.
The Scotsman staggers out and shouts, 'I'm free!' and then keels over dead from alcohol poisoning.
The Irishman is dragged out into the light, whereupon he promptly dies of liver failure.
When the door to the Englishman's cell is opened, everybody watches eagerly to see what sort of a wreck the man has made of himself.
To their surprise, he walks right out the door, sidles up to the first person he sees, and asks, 'I say you wouldn't happen to have a match, would you?

(Hat tip:)

The tricolon works every time. It causes joy, fun and laughter.

When you do tricolons yourself try and make the third one different – longer, rounder vowel, dafter.

The English character consists of football, beer and hypocrisy.
Christmas! What a time for love, family and terrible quarrels!
Thomas Hobbes: Man's life in his natural state is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. 

People often quote this as “nasty, brutish and short” because they prefer the tricolon.

Winston Churchill told parliament that he had nothing to offer but “blood, toil, tears and sweat” (This is a tetracolon, by the way.) Almost everyone misquotes this as a tricolon: “blood, sweat and tears.”

We all love a tricolon.

Ready, steady, go!