Why this word is great
MERISM — [Noun] A rhetorical device in which a totality is invoked by naming two contrasting or complementary parts, as in “flesh and blood” or “lock, stock, and barrel.” From Ancient Greek μερισμός (merismós, “division, partitioning”), from μέρος (méros, “part”). Unlike synecdoche, which substitutes a part for the whole (“all hands on deck”), or hendiadys, which twins nouns to express a singular concept (“grace and favor”), merism uses division to suggest a greater, unspoken unity. It is the exhaustive search from “heaven to earth,” the binding vow of “last will and testament,” and the patriotic sweep “from sea to shining sea”—a cartography of completeness drawn with only two points. By stating the boundaries, it quietly claims all the territory in between.