Skip to main content

I've been thinking about speech making.
In particular that effect of repeating a short phrase. I believe they call it a tricolon if there are 3 separate but related parts.
Cicero is often credited with being the greatest orator of all time.
Barack Obama lifts some examples straight from Cicero.


An example from President Lincoln's inaugural address:
"with malice toward none,
with charity toward all,
with firmness in the right..."

and again from the Gettysburg address:
"But in a larger sense
we cannot dedicate,
we cannot consecrate,
we cannot hallow this ground..."


So now we come to Gordon Brown.
He is doing a lot of repetition; but unlike Martin Luther Kind (I have a dream) and Barack
Obama (Yes we can) I find Brown annoying.

When Brown says something like
"We want to improve .......
We want to improve the health service
We want to improve our schools
We want to improve the police."
I'm afraid when Brown does it he simply annoys me and I find it irritating.
I wonder why it sounds good when some others do it, but bad when Gordon Brown does it?

Replies sorted oldest to newest

The most famous trilcolon of all is:
Julius Caesar's "Veni, vidi, vici" translated as "I came, I saw, I conquered"

The reason why Brown is irritating you is probably well if Labour have been in power for 13 years, why does he feel the need to say we want to improve the health service, schools, police. It begs the question what have Labour been doing all these years?
El Loro

Add Reply

×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×