Read an interesting article in the paper this week about the next US President's use of “tricks” of oratory first deployed by Cicero in Ancient Rome in his speechifying; these include the tricolon (strings of three points), antonomasia (the identification of a person by an epithet or appellative that is not the person's name), anaphora and epiphora (repetition of a phrase at the start or end of a sentence).
Always good to learn new things, not that I am planning a career switch to become a politician.
This demonstrates yet again just how far ahead the Romans of over 2000 years ago were in their thinking or how bereft of new ideas Western civilization has been for the last 1000 years.
There was also a reference to a book about the dumbing down of President's speeches over the last 100 years from college reading levels then to 8th grade school kids now (ages 13-14 if wiki is to be believed).
Googled the author and found myself on his blog, he writes pretty well as you might expect for someone whose higher education was done at Oxford. This post on why he thought it was now time to change the mantra “Support Our Troops” to “Honour Our Veterans” struck me as thought provoking.
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2 comments:
Hmmm....I'm a descendant of the Romans that invaded Britain. People in my family are folks that have persuaded others for a living: actors, musicians, lawyers, and shop owners who had to persuade folks to buy their goods. I teach kids how to persuade others with their words.
Hmm....
(I use that whole three point thing with my kids, btw.) :)
rt, Uh oh, I can see a whole new career path ahead of you - but you are too smart to fall into the low life world of politics.
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