The Elements of Eloquence

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I listened to this an audiobook while driving back and forth from Fresno to Sacramento. There was a point where I was laughing so hard that I feared for my safety.

Mark Forsyth did a brilliant job of taking the listener/reader through the “figures of rhetoric” by way of great literature and popular music. Certain rhetorical styles simply work, whether they be alliteration (the repetition of sounds) or repetition of the final words or phrases (Epistrophe) or the repetition of the beginning words or phrases (Anaphora). This stuff works and we know it does and we are exposed to it on a daily basis, but we will never remember the technical terms and we barely notice them as they occur all around us.

I am a lawyer and I think that knowing the technical terms, and the ideas behind those terms, might help me do intentionally what I am doing unintentionally. I think that others might have a similar experience, but this book is not a technical handbook. It is an enjoyable voyage through the English language, literature and lyrics. Here is an example:

“The second kind of pleonasm is quite different. It's the lazy adjective noun. This is a world of personal friends, added bonuses and free gifts. They are annoying for two contradictory reasons: first of all nobody talks like that, and secondly everybody talks like that.
I have never said the words “free gift.” It would seem a sinister thing to say when gathered around the Christmas tree. “Here's my free gift, and, as an added bonus, here's a festive Christmas card.” People would think I'd gone mad. Yet, if you wander into a shop or make the terrible mistake of turning on the television or radio, you will hear of havens that are safe, cooperation that is mutual, and prizes that are, it turns out, to be won.
Such phrases lumber about the language like zombies. They were created long ago by insanely evil marketing executives who were desperate to progress forward and sell their foreign imports to the general public. But, like Frankenstein's monster, they could not be stopped. They still lurk in shops and howl from televisions; even though their original inventor is past history.”

Likewise:

“There are people who would find that line inspiring. They would read it and run off to live better lives of purity and holiness up a hill somewhere. There are others who would find it infuriating. Twice. They would read it and as they did so the veins would stand out on their furious foreheads, the saliva would drip from their maddened mouths, and they would take a big red marker pen out of their pockets and delete two words.
First, there's the word “up.” What other direction can you lift something? It's almost as bad as “fall down” or “enter into.” It is (some would say) an insult to the intelligence and an abuse of the English language. But it's not nearly as bad as “from whence.” Whence means from where. So what does “from whence” mean? “From from where”? It's enough to make you shoot yourself, and then write an angry letter to the paper.
People who think like this lead terrible lives. They have never married, simply because they couldn't bear to hear the words:
Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony . . .
They can't enjoy Hamlet because of the unnecessary “that” in “To be or not to be, that is the question.” And they can't even throw themselves in front of a train and put an end to their lives of misery and woe, because they're not sure about railway tracks.”

Pleonasms can be fun.

Language can be fun.