The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase

Put simply, if you want to take your writing to the next level, you must read (and reread) this book. The author has brought together the most common, and some not so common, figures of speech and literary devices to enable the reader to understand them and see how they have been utilized by writers, great and small (no merism intended), to give their writings depth, meaning, and whimsy. We all sense it when we read interesting and arresting (no alliteration intended) literature. But we often don't know why the passage, or poem, or prose captures and captivates us. Well, this book will tell you why and you will be dazzled and delighted. It will also help you in your interpretation of literature. Someone has said, "you don't know what a text means, until you know how it means." In other words, meaning is locked up in the way the text has been put together in terms of its grammar, syntax, and literary artistry. Once you understand the "how" of its construction, the meaning appears. This book will show you the "how" of the text's construction. The author has a great style of writing that always keeps your interest and he fills his pages with numerous examples of the figure or device he is describing. So, hurry and get this book. It will make you a better writer and a better reader - two goals for the price of one.

This is a must read for writers and readers. Many self-help books on this subject talk about limiting adverbs, or shortening sentences, but this humdinger proves there is method behind all the verbiage! In a remix, there is a proper dressing for word salads. My favorite writing technique actually has a name: alliteration! By habit, this writer has favored using the same letter or consonant to describe events. Because of this book she now realizes she has been reinventing the wheel. Alliteration was alive and doing well long before I discovered I was a student! Its use is everywhere from Captain Crunch, Best Buy, Lois Lane, Power to the People, Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, Dunkin Donuts, Coca Cola, Kit Kat, Bruce Banner a Christmas Carol, Takes Two to Tango . . . yes, everywhere. My favorite is the Wicked Witch of the West! But don't discount Peter Piper Picked or How much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck if I a . . . You got to read this brilliant behind-the-scenes perfect peek. (Double Alliteration!) This book will supply a new way to think about your thinking. Think about your thinking is a pure polyptoton! Don't be a stranger in a strange land (another polyptoton) read this book!

A gathering of known and lesser known literary tools is nice -> short but useful read. Overly bloated however in many chapters - the book does deliver but is not written for clarity but to embellish and entertain. Not a bad thing as it does not read like a dry textbook, but occasionally diverges from the content the book is meant to primarily convey.

“The aim of this book has been to make clear what is done, a clarity and knowledge that has been abandoned for a couple of centuries now. It is as though we had decided to forget about structural engineering, and instead build our buildings by chance. Any figure overused, or used in the wrong place and at the wrong time, will be a fault. But a figure used and used well, is the beauty of the English language.”

I liked this book so much I'm basing my writing blog's latest public writing challenge on it. We're going chapter by chapter and writing lines for each of these figures. At the end, we'll be writing poems using as many of them as possible. The blog is called Slow Literature, and everyone is welcome. If you're bored by the syntactical straitjacket in which modern writing labors, or wonder why writing from the past seems so much more intelligent and interesting than contemporary writing, you're not just imagining things. This book can get you started on finding out what contemporary writing is missing. For some other clues, you might read Dorothy Sayers' essay on education or take a look at an old logic textbook. Yes, logic was once taught as a subject in school. Nowadays people simply assume, quite inaccurately, that their thinking is correct without the benefit of careful training. Rhetoric was also once taught as a subject in school, and is the subject of this book. Along with a lot of memorization and recitation, the teaching of rhetoric goes a long way toward explaining why people in the past had more interesting conversations, better debates, and more varied writing styles. They had tools. For those wondering what happened (not covered by this book) it is down to social engineers like John Dewey. It is down to the generation of arrogant pseudo-scientific intellectuals who gave us Prohibiton, scientific racism, abortion clinics and other eugenics measures, and rehabilitative jurisprudential methods that are far more intrusive, lengthy, mentally manipulative, and torturous than simple retributive punishment would have been. Oh - they made school "compulsive" as well - a blow from which, along with income tax, liberty will never recover. These "reformers" decided that school should now exist for the purpose of shaping society and making kids into good citizens, who contribute to the GDP instead of living their lives suitably to their personal natures. Formerly, school was dedicated solely to its natural purpose of forming and informing intellects. People dropped out when they'd had enough, and were let alone to decide, with their parents, when that was. The unambitious were allowed to remain so (on the common sense theory that it takes all kinds) instead of being cudgeled into economic servitude. Aside from creating a class of economic slaves, this reform put a huge burden on schools they simply haven't been able to bear. Of course, Dewey died and left the experiment running; and it's still running; and there's no one to say when it's failed, when it's gone on long enough, or even what the parameters are anymore. School shootings seem hardly surprising. In fact they seem hardly robust enough, as a measure of reform, though of course one wants the muzzle pointed in a more constructive direction. Mark Forsyth uses a writing style relaxed, generous, and amusing. You could not find a more accessible introduction to rhetoric. However one should be clear that the rhetorical tools in this book are not anything like the whole tree - just the "flowers" of rhetoric. The sad truth is that without prior foundational training in logic, asking people - even with MFA's - to learn and use the main body of rhetoric is like asking a toddler to drive an 18-wheeler. Still, you have to start somewhere. It might as well be somewhere enjoyable.

This is an easy read packed with great information on rhetoric. Ideal for a beginner.

Excelente!! Uma aula de retórica de dar gargalhadas.

Entertaining and insightful too

This is a great book: wonderfully written, very interesting, it will spike your curiosity and your intellectual sinapses non-stop. After reading "Etymologicon" and this one, I can easily surmise that Mark Forsyth is now my favourite non-fiction writer. If you haven't, read this and "Etymologicon". Also, the book arrived in perfect condition, with that great new book smell. No complaints here. Sorry for not writing this in spanish, but I can't write in spanish efficiently and translating it online might result in me saying something weird without knowing.

This book is about the rules of rhetoric and probably isn't for everyone, but for those of us who LOVE words, this book is a delight. I write and edit non-fiction and technical material for a living, and I read a lot of fiction for pleasure -- and I can't believe all the things I didn't know about constructing prose and poetry. If this sounds dry (and in other hands, it probably would be), you will be surprised to hear that it absolutely isn't. This author is witty and fun, and the many examples are taken from everything from Shakespeare to Alanis Morissette. There is nothing stuffy about it. I learned, for example, what "iambic pentameter" really means and how it is used -- reading the many examples, I almost want to try it myself!