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FREE fortnightly newsletter full of public speaking tips, techniques, humour, quotes & anecdotes you can use in your very next speech or presentation |
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Useful Rhetorical Techniques ALLITERATION repeats the same sound or letter beginning several words in sequence. "Let us go forth to lead the land we love" - J. F. Kennedy, Inaugural Speech "Veni, vidi, vinci " - Julius Caesar "We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work your wicked will " -Winston Churchill "That power ... which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution" - Sir Winston Churchill "Step forward, Tin Man. You dare to come to me for a heart, do you? You clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk...And you, Scarecrow, have the effrontery to ask for a brain! You billowing bale of bovine fodder !" - the Wizard of Oz "We have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism"- US Vice President Spiro Agnew ALLUSION is a short reference to a famous person or event (the best sources for allusions are literature, history, Greek myth, and the Bible, as they must be easily understood). It is also important that it explains, or enhances the subject under discussion without sidetracking the listener. "You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first. 'Tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size" - Shakespeare "If you take his parking place, you can expect World War II all over again" AMPLIFICATION repeats a word or expression while adding more detail to it, in order to emphasize something. "I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too" - Queen Elizabeth I ANADIPLOSIS repeats one or several words that end one clause and begin another. "Some men are born with greatness , some men achieve greatness , and some men have greatness thrust upon them" - William Shakespeare "The love of wicked men converts to fear , "Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business" - Francis Bacon "They call for you: the general who became a slave ; the slave who became a gladiator; the gladiator who defied an Emperor" - Joaquin Phoenix (from the movie Gladiator ) ANALOGY is a kind of extended METAPHOR or long SIMILE in which a comparison is made between two things in order to develop a line of reasoning. While it is similar to simile, similes are generally more artistic and brief, while an analogy is longer and explains a thought process. "Knowledge always desires increase: it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself" - Samuel Johnson ANAPHORA repeats the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, or sentences, often alongside CLIMAX and PARALLELISM and using the RULE OF THREES. "To think on death it is a misery,/ To think on life it is a vanity;/ To think on the world verily it is,/ To think that here man hath no perfect bliss" - Peacham "But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land" - Martin Luther King, Jnr. "But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground " - Abraham Lincoln ANASTROPHE is a departure from normal word order for the sake of emphasis "Four score and seven years ago" - Abraham Lincoln "This much we pledge, and more" - JF Kennedy ANTISTROPHE repeats the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses. "In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo -- without warning . In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia -- without warning . In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria -- without warning . In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia -- without warning. Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland -- without warning . And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand -- and the United States -- without warning" - Franklin D. Roosevelt "A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break the bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day . An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight!" - King Aragorn (from the movie 'The Return of the King'), ANTITHESIS is a figure of balance in which two contrasting ideas are deliberately used in consecutive phrases or sentences. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character" -- Martin Luther King, Jr. "Reasonable men adapt to the world. Unreasonable men adapt the world to themselves . That's why all progress depends on unreasonable men" - George Bernard Shaw "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor bastard die for his country" - General George Patton "That's one small step for a man , one giant leap for mankind" --Neil Armstrong "To be or not to be , that is the question" - William Shakespeare ASSONANCE is the successive use of different syllables with the same or similar vowel sounds in words with different consonants. It is similar to rhyme, but can be used with similar sounding words, as in the Churchill example. "Our flag is red, white, and blue -- but our national is rainbow. Red, yellow, brown, black, and white , we're all precious in God's sight" - Jesse Jackson "I feel the need , the need for speed" -- Tom Cruise (from the movie Top Gun) "The odious apparatus of Nazi rule" - Winston Churchill ASYNDETON is a lack of conjunctions (e.g. 'and') between successive phrases or words. "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty" - JF Kennedy, Inaugural CHIASMUS is a very commonly used and effective technique where the words in one phrase or clause are reversed in the next. " But just because you're born in the slum does not mean the slum is born in you, and you can rise above it if your mind is made up" - Jesse Jackson "It's not the men in my life that counts: it's the life in my men " - Mae West "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" -- John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" - unknown "Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done"- President George W Bush "I'd rather be looked over than overlooked" - Mae West (again) "Is man one of God's blunders or God one of man's blunders?" - Friedrich Nietzsche "One should eat to live, not live to eat" - Cicero CLIMAX (also called gradatio) is the arrangement of words or phrases in order of increasing importance or emphasis. It is often used with parallelism because it offers a sense of continuity, order, and movement-up the ladder of importance. "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth" - Frank Borman, Apollo 8 astronaut And now I ask you ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, for the good of all of us, for the love of this great nation, for the family of America, for the love of God ; please make this nation remember how futures are built " - Mario Cuomo, Governor of New York DIACOPE repeats aword or phrase after an intervening word or phrase. "Free at last, free at last ; thank God almighty, free at last!" - Martin Luther King "The people everywhere , not just here in Britain, everywhere -- they kept faith with Princess Diana" - Tony Blair DISTINCTIO is an elaboration on a particular meaning of a word in order to prevent any misunderstanding or ambiguity: "In modern times (and here I am referring to the post-World War Two era) ..." "The task could be described as difficult, if by difficult we mean that it will entail hardship" "The operation will need to be completed quickly; that is, within three months" EPISTROPHE (also called antistrophe) repeats the last word(s) in one phrase or sentence at the end of successive ones. "...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth" - Abraham Lincoln EPONYM substitution fo the name of a famous person recognized famous for a particular attribute, for that attribute. By their nature they often border on the cliché, but many times they can be useful without seeming too obviously trite. While finding new or infrequently used ones is best, it is also more difficult, because the name-and-attribute relationship needs to be well established: "You don't need to be Einstein to see that .... " "That little Hitler is fooling nobody" "We all must realize that Uncle Sam is not supposed to be Santa Claus " EXPLETIVE is a word or short phrase, that interrupts normal speech in order to lend emphasis to the words immediately next to it: " . we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving .." - Winston Churchill HYPERBOLE is the deliberate exaggeration for emphasis or effect, i.e. the opposite of MEIOSIS. It must be clearly intended as an exaggeration, and should be used sparingly to be effective. That is, do not exaggerate everything, but treat hyperbole like an exclamation point, to be used only occasionally. " I've told you a million times not to exaggerate". "This steak isn't rare; I've seen cows hurt worse than this get up and get well " Or you can exaggerate one thing to show how really different it is from something supposedly similar to which it is being compared: This stuff is used motor oil compared to the coffee at Starbuck's HYPOPHORA is a figure of reasoning in which one or more questions or objections is/are asked or stated and then answered by the speaker; reasoning aloud (i.e. the roiginal 'rhetorical question)'. "When the enemy struck on that June day of 1950, what did America do? It did what it always has done in all its times of peril. It appealed to the heroism of its youth" - Dwight D. Eisenhower "'But there are only three hundred of us,' you object. Three hundred, yes, but men, but armed, but Spartans, but at Thermoplyae: I have never seen three hundred so numerous" - Seneca LITOTES is a particular form of understatement, which denies the opposite of the word which otherwise would be used "I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations" - Martin Luther King, Jr. MEIOSIS is a deliberate understatement, i.e. the opposite of HYPERBOLE. "The situation has developed, not necessarily to our advantage" - Emperor Hirohito, announcing to the Japanese people that atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki METABASIS is a brief statement of what has been said and what will follow; a kind of transitional summary: "So far I have concentrated only on the costs of the proposal. I now want to turn to the benefits" "So much for the achievements of last year. Let's look at the objectives for this one" METANOIA (also called correctio) qualifies a statement by recalling it (or part of it) and expressing it in a better, milder, or stronger way. A negative (e.g. 'nay' though this would be a little theetrical in a business speech or presentation) is often used to do the recalling: "Fido was the friendliest of all St. Bernards, nay of all dogs " "And if I am still far from the goal, the fault is my own for not paying heed to the reminders-- nay, the virtual directions --which I have had from above" - Marcus Aurelius "Even a blind man can see, as the saying is, that poetic language gives a certain grandeur to prose, except that some writers imitate the poets quite openly, or rather they do not so much imitate them as transpose their words into their own work, as Herodotus does" -Demetrius METAPHOR is the comparison of two different things by speaking of one in terms of the other. Unlike a SIMILE or ANALOGY, a metaphor asserts that one thing actually is another thing, not just like it. "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" - Sir Winston Churchill "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players" - William Shakespeare "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold" - WJ Bryan, arguing against the introduction of the Gold Standard "It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity" - Martin Luther King Jnr. "The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans" - President JF Kennedy "The mother of all battles" - Sadaam Hussein PARALLELISM is a figure of balance identified by successive words or phrases with the same or very similar grammatical structure. "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty" -- John F. Kennedy, "We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers, working past exhaustion. We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers -- in English, Hebrew, and Arabic" - George W. Bush "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance -- in this life or the next" - Russell Crowe (from the movie Gladiator) "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I may remember. Involve me and I will learn" - Benjamin Franklin POLYSYNDETON is the repetitive use of a conjunction between each word, phrase, or clause, and therefore the opposite of ASYNDETON. "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with t he borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him" --Isaiah 24:1-2 (KJV) PRAETERITIO (also called paraleipsis) is a pretended omission for rhetorical effect. "That part of our history detailing the military achievements which gave us our several possessions ... is a theme too familiar to my listeners for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by" - Thucydides "Let us make no judgment on the events of Chappaquiddick , since the facts are not yet all in" - a political opponent of Senator Edward Kennedy Sometimes it is used to draw attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over: "It would be unseemly for me to dwell on the honourable member's drinking problem, and too many have already sensationalized his womanizing..." "We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here ; how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, done rare" - Herman Melville , Moby Dick SCESIS ONOMATON emphasises something by expressing it in a string of generally synonymous phrases or statements. While it should be used carefully, this deliberate and obvious restatement can be quite effective. Although it can use more than three, it tends to be most effective when used in conjunction with the RULE OF THREES: "We succeeded, we were victorious, we accomplished the feat!" "A sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that deal corruptly" --Isaiah 1:4 "But there is one thing these glassy-eyed idealists forget: such a scheme would be extremely costly, horrendously expensive, and require a ton of money" "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, SENTENTIA is a figure of argument in which a wise, witty, or well-known saying is used to sum up the preceding material. "So, I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord' " -- Martin Luther King, Jr, SIMILE is a comparison between two different things that resemble each other, comparing an unfamiliar thing to some familiar thing known to the listener, usually prefaced with the word 'like': "He bestrides this narrow world like a colossus" - William Shakespeare "My love is like a red, red rose " - Robert Burns "Let us go then, you and I, where the evening is spread out across the sky like a patient "We're going to go through them like crap through a goose" - General George Patton "Seeing John Major govern the country is like watching Edward Scissorhands try to make balloon animals"- Simon Hoggart "It's like being savaged by a dead sheep" - Labour politician Dennis Healey on being verbally attacked by Tory minister Sir Geoffrey Howe SYMPLOCE repeats the the first and last word or words in one phrase or sentence in one or more successive ones, thereby combining ANAPHORA and EPISTROPHE "Much of what I say might sound bitter, but it's the truth . Much of what I say might sound like it's stirring up trouble, but it's the truth. Much of what I say might sound like it is hate, but it's the truth" - Malcolm X "Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island" - Franklin D Roosevelt "There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin . There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin . And there are some who say, in Europe and elsewhere, we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin" - JF Kennedy If you've never tried any of the above before, you might be thinking that they sound a little theatrical, grandiloquent or 'Churchillian'. But it is easy to use them with normal, everyday language. If you'd like advice on how to do so, get my Speak Like A Pro E-Manual or subscribe to my FREE fornightly newsletter which often contains exerpts from recent speeches by politicians showing the use of the techniques.
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