Tag Archives: anaphora

Ann Widdecombe devastates

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This is the last of the speeches from the Oxford Union Debate on the motion This House Supports No Platforming.

For the motion we have heard from Robert French and Mariah Idrissi. We should also have heard from Naz Shah MP; but she upheld her devotion to the motion by refusing to speak unless Katie Hopkins was no platformed, which the Union refused to support.

Against the motion we have heard from Toby Young and Katie Hopkins. Now, closing the opposition case we have Ann Widdecombe. It took more than six-and-a-half years and more than 400 blog postings for Ann Widdecombe first to appear here, and she appears for the second time within seven weeks. That previous time she ranted for two minutes, let’s see what she can do in twelve.

I have never seen a more effective ethos-laden opening. Nor can I imagine one. This promises to be quite a speech. [If you clicked that link to my Glossary page, I suggest you keep the tab open…]

Need I even bother to point out that she shoots the entire speech from the hip? All proper speakers can and do, and this is very definitely a proper speaker.

Her structure is a clear narrative thread that takes in examples – mainly during her lifetime (which corresponds pretty closely with mine) – of speech kept properly free, despite offence and hurt; of those who improperly suppressed speech; and concludes with a few extremely abhorrent views which should never be afforded the protection of being silenced. And the brilliance is not restricted to what she says but how she expresses it. In giving examples, she paints very strong word-pictures to give maximum impact to the point she makes. Also she knows her rhetoric technique.

For instance, at 1:41 she launches into anaphora, and not any old anaphora, but one which echoes what is probably the best known example in English literature. Many might not be able to cite act 2, scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Richard II, but are still familiar with “this royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty,” and so on. And that’s what Widdecombe echoes, sending her words deep into where we live. This is skill of a very high order.

There’s also humour, including a nice moment at 6:50. The official charged with the timekeeping passes her a note. She picks it up, reads it, and says, “Two minutes more? No I need at least five.” Her calculation is correct to the second.

In her peroration she homes in on something I raised when analysing an earlier speech, and about which I am particularly passionate: free speech is not just about people’s right to speak but more about people’s right to hear.

This must be a strong contender to be hailed as the best speech I have covered on this blog. She is devastating!

I am not in the least surprised to learn that the debate’s motion was resoundingly defeated. I congratulate The Oxford Union.

Richard Kemp: exponent of anaphora.

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On 18 March, just over two weeks ago, there was a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council whereat the commission sought once again to censure Israel for alleged atrocities.

On these occasions at the UNHRC the only dissenting voice tends to come from UN Watch which, in its own words, “exists to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter”. All the other voices seem to come from Israel’s Moslem neighbours, countries which have openly asked for Israel’s complete destruction. Membership of the UNHRC consists of countries with the most benign attitude to Human Rights, like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, and recently Iran. This last was admitted just days after sentencing Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh to a high number of years in prison, and an even higher number of lashes, for defending Iranian women accused of protesting against mandatory headscarves. This gives a flavour of the UNHRC.

The dissenting voice from UN Watch on this occasion came from a retired British soldier, Col. Richard Kemp.

For just over a minute we watch a stream of clips of condemnations of Israel, before Col. Kemp begins at 01:08.

At 01:56 he launches into anaphora (“I accuse this commission…”) lasting till 2:47 and containing five elements of repetition. It is a copybook example of the power of this sort of rhetorical figure of speech.

Notwithstanding the above, you may not consider a pronouncement lasting just a few seconds more than two minutes, read from a script and delivered seated, as being a proper speech. I might agree, which is why I also give you another speech made by Col. Kemp to a crowd just outside the same building.

Charlie Kirk and obscure words

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On February 28 at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland, there were speeches from some notable American Conservatives, including the President. One was by Charlie Kirk, Founder and Executive Director of Turning Point USA.

Another organisation has, in the past few days, declared Turning Point to be extremist. Knowing a little of that other organisation that could be regarded as a badge of honour, and I am interested to learn what Kirk has to say.

I wish he weren’t carrying that sheaf of paper when he enters. He barely looks at it through the speech so he doesn’t need it. If he had entered empty handed it would have done wonders for his initial impact.

The opening minute is a little messy, which is not unusual among those who have yet to learn the secret, but at 01:13 he’s into the driving seat. The opening salvo concerns how the left is unable to debate, having no case to argue, so expends all its energies in cancelling debates and no-platforming people. That is why students are politically crippled.

Though he may not know the words (why should he?) he loves anaphora, epistrophe, and symploce (you might want to have my Glossary page ready); and he uses them very powerfully.

At 02:58 he launches into epistrophe – “…you do not mean well” – which morphs into symploce – “If you wanna … you do not mean well”. It goes on and on, powered by a steady auxesis and culminates in ecstatic applause. Another epistrophe-cum-symploce begins at 05:17. A huge anaphora appears at 06:35, with a massive nine elements. Another anaphora kicks off at 07:56, though with just a paltry four elements. At 10:54 his peroration begins with a three-element anaphora.

When someone like me analyses a speech down to a bunch of obscure rhetorical terms, you might expect that speech to be talking-by-numbers and therefore dull. But Cicero and other ancients only coined these terms because they swayed audiences. Kirk’s audience is in the palm of his proverbial.

The boy’s not bad.

Trey Gowdy doesn’t need a speaker’s platform.

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In April 2012 the U.S. House Oversight Committee held a hearing to look into what appears to have been egregious waste by the General Services Administration [GSA]. Quite late in the process, Trey Gowdy delivered his own summary of what had been going on.

We have met Gowdy before on this blog. The previous time he was delivering a formal speech to students, and I described him as a speaking phenomenon. Here he is not on a speaking platform but essentially delivering an impromptu monologue, and my opinion of his speaking ability has – if anything – increased. I have said before on this blog that passion is worth buckets of technique, and the dream ticket is to have both. Here Gowdy is displaying passion, and conveying it with consummate skill. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the tongue when wielded by a such master is still mightier.

The background to this issue is very clearly laid out here. It’s a relatively short read, and a good way to understand what has caused Gowdy to be so exercised. This matter concerns not my country, but I find myself easily transposing the circumstances across the Atlantic, seeing parallels, and getting likewise exercised.

The above clip begins with forty seconds of  Gowdy putting questions to Brian Miller, The GSA Inspector General, and then Gowdy sets off.

Immediately we get the gist. He is comparing the difference between spending our own money and dipping our paws into a bottomless fund, fed by coercive tax. Most of us could make quite a reasonable fist of that; but not many when talking of a charitable gift (beginning at 1:00) would come up with,

I hate that you robbed yourself of the satisfaction of knowing what it feels like to do it yourself instead of spending someone else’s money to do it.

The amazing thing is that in this monologue that isn’t particularly exceptional. Every time he makes a point he finds a new, different, and particularly telling way of couching it. At 2:25 he even dips into the Book of Exodus to compare the GSA’s profligacy unfavourably with the Children of Israel in the desert, and the parallel is flawless.

He swings into an auxesis at 4:00 with anaphora on the words, “what’s the penalty…”, but when he comes to his actual peroration he doesn’t keep the crescendo going, but suddenly drops into bitter contempt.

Yes, I know that as a District Attorney he will have examined and cross-examined witnesses countless times, and addressed juries as often, and his skill has been honed in the process, but this is mind-blowingly effective.

Since this occasion, and in fact since he was last on this blog, Trey Gowdy has been appointed Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. What a sound choice!

 

Mohammed AlKhadra and courage

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On 23 July, during the Secular Conference 2017 in London, there was a Plenary Session on the theme of Out, Loud And Proud. On the Panel was Mohammed AlKhadra, Founder of the Jordanian Atheist Group. This video of his speech was uploaded to YouTube by John Smith, and you can see from the strap-line at the top of the still picture what he thought of it.

He speaks for nine and a half minutes, and when the rapturous applause dies down the Chairman of the session, Dan Barker, tells us that this was AlKhadra’s first speech.

He opens almost abruptly. He thanks and indicates Maryam Namazie, whom he describes as the bravest woman he knows, and then he plunges straight into his speech. It’s as near as makes no difference a bald opening, and I would bet money that the first few sentences are memorised. Whoever advised him did well (perhaps it was he himself). Some of my trainees take some persuading that a bald opening is a wonderful way of busting a hump till they try it, at which point a typical reaction is “that was so liberating”. I also recommend that they memorise the first minute or two, and thereafter simply follow a clear structure and shoot from the hip. That looks to me the precise path followed by this young man, and it works beautifully.

At the beginning he is smothered in symptoms of nerves which reduce markedly when he pays tribute, at 0:45, to Richard Dawkins in the audience. By the time he hits an elegant anaphora – “How do I know …” just after 1:30 – hump symptoms have almost evaporated and he is in the driving seat. I feel myself relaxing on his behalf.

The speech is shaming. You don’t have to agree with his atheism to be hugely impressed by the courage he has shown and is showing in being true to himself, and how it compares to the whining of the spoilt brats in the West with their imbecilic victim culture, Safe Spaces, No Platforming, and protestations that everything with which they have been told to disagree is Hate Speech which threatens the comfort they claim they ‘deserve’. Consider what he risks with his apostasy and his determination to speak freely, and you might find yourself thinking that the masked idiots of Antifa, wielding their clubs under an alarmingly familiar flag to deprive people of free speech, should have their bottoms smacked and be sent to bed without supper.

It shames the way western politics has polarised into pathetic but vicious tribal nonsense while real and dangerous issues confront us all.

It shames hate speech laws, every one of which should be instantly repealed. In the UK we have had for many years a law against incitement to violence. What more do we need? If we do not have freedom of speech we do not have freedom. The USA, to its eternal credit, has the First Amendment; and political movements, to their eternal shame, try to chip away at it.

It shames the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service which currently boasts 83% success rate against imagined ‘hate crimes’, while drawing a veil over 0% prosecutions for real and widespread FGM.

Like you, no doubt, I fear for this young man’s future. Perhaps his speech will cause us to reflect on how to make fundamental changes to the political climate that endangers him.

And us. And our children. And theirs.

 

Keir Starmer: competing with paint

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On 13 December, 2016, Sir Keir Starmer delivered a speech at Bloomberg in London. He is the Shadow Secretary of State for exiting the European Union.

I read a Tweet from someone who, on the basis of a speech one day, described him as the most boring speaker he had ever heard. Naturally, though suspecting that partisan bias might have been at play, I had to investigate further. Sadly I have thus far failed to find that speech on line, but I have found this one. Why don’t you and I make up our own minds on the basis of what we find.

Well it isn’t about to set the world on fire, though I have known considerably worse. The main problem is that it has been scripted, and the scripting has hallmarks of the civil service. Let us look at some specifics.

He takes far too long to get going. From that opening Starmer stammer, which I am sure is not real but an affectation, up to 2:40 could beneficially be binned. It fails to contribute anything. He has in there a faintly humorous observation about his job-title. I have no problem with that, or the faint humour, but I do have a problem with his pause inviting audience response which doesn’t materialise. As throw-away humour it would have worked, but that pause made it lame.

At 2:23 he utters the words, “My speech today will be…” Did you get that? “Will be..” He is acknowledging that he hasn’t started yet, even though he is nearly two and a half minutes in. Two and a half minutes is actually an optimum length for an inconsequential opening (for technical reasons that I’ll spare you), but it needs to be a better two and a half minutes than that.

2:40 sees the beginning of a good epistrophe. As a bald opening that would have been powerful.

At 10:40 there’s a strong anaphora, and at 12:50 there’s another. There may have been more but the tediousness of the delivery makes it difficult to concentrate.

All these suggest professional speechwriting; and the even-handed balance of much of the message supports that view. The speech is relatively weasel-free for a politician.

I appreciate that balance, because not enough remainers have publicly made the point that if the referendum had gone the other way, and leavers had protested and obstructed as aggressively as remainers have, it would have been considered a scandal.

He is also right about the Cameron government’s disgraceful dereliction of duty that absolutely no plans were in place against a Brexit vote.

Yes, I am sure that professional speechwriter(s) were involved here, and it’s a quality job. But to be a good speaker, Starmer needs to learn how to dispense with his script and permit his personality to show. Reading causes him to scatter the speech with reading-stumbles, which are quite different from (and lamer than) speaking stumbles. Worst of all, reading makes his delivery tedious.

I became fascinated by the tangerine paint behind him.

John Bird is magnificent

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In October 2015, the founder of The Big Issue was elevated to the House of Peers.  He is John Bird, and in February 2016 he made his maiden speech.

In future, if anyone asks me what I do, I think I might refer them to this speech. Acquaintances, relatives, even quite close friends seem to have a vague notion that I earn my crust by polishing up people’s accents, or getting them to stand ‘correctly’ and orate. Anyone with whom I have worked on public speaking will greet such thoughts with the same wry smile, because actually I bully people into being themselves. There’s a little more to it, for instance in terms of structuring your material for optimum digestibility for your audience and optimum memorability for yourself etc., but the foundation is always being yourself.

I tear scripts out of their hands because that bloody paper is a screen between them and their audience, but also because it is a screen between them and themselves.

I repeatedly tell my trainees that the most engaging, compelling and persuasive they can be is when they are being themselves, warts and all, and speaking spontaneously.

Yes, there is such a thing as appropriateness; but once a speaker has learnt to come out from behind one of those ghastly but ubiquitous self-imposed masks, they are better equipped to steer an appropriate course while still being themselves.

Watch this speech, and see what I am talking about. For a start there’s no paper: the words he speaks are always the words that come to him at the time – genuinely spontaneous. He pushes the boundary of appropriateness by describing someone (affectionately) as a bugger; but he doesn’t sleep-walk into it because a little earlier he  correctly referred to a fellow Peer as “the noble Lady”. He knows what he is doing, makes his own policy decisions, and trusts himself to speak spontaneously.

I have had people challenging my position by stating that pre-scripting a speech enables a better choice of words and phrasing. My reply tends to refer to round objects.

Listen to Bird, shooting from the hip from his bald opening to his courteous close, and you will hear for instance an elegant and lengthy anaphora (“when I was…”) beginning at 3:40, and there are more such. You will hear very accomplished comedy timing. You will hear a wide variety of rhythm, pacing and vocal tone. You will, in short, hear an exemplary piece of public speaking: well conceived, well structured, well delivered.

Yes you will also hear stumbles, slips of the tongue, and other mistakes – but who cares? Listen to someone reading a script and you will likewise hear all those things, but they have a different, lamer, more toe-curling quality than from spontaneous speech.

The most important people at any speech are in the audience. We can hear their appreciation from time to time, but there is one who is almost constantly in view. I refer to the Noble Lady we can see over his right shoulder. I wish I knew who she was because she has a wonderfully expressive face. He can’t see her, but he has her in the palm of his proverbial hand. Never once does she doubt his sincerity.

What a magnificent speaker!

Vebjørn Selbekk: a study in courage

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On 26 September, 2015, in a room in the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen, there was held an event that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office deemed so inflammatory, extremist and fraught with controversy that, clutching their pearls, they advised people against going near it. It was certainly dangerous. International Conference: The Danish Muhammad cartoon crisis in retrospect was its title. Free speech was its theme.

We have already seen the speech by Henryk Broder from Germany. Today we shall examine the contribution by Vebjørn Selbekk from Norway.

I’m afraid he’s reading. All the comments that I expressed concerning Henryk Broder reading his speech apply here. That includes the view that nevertheless I’d prefer to hear him reading this than not hear it at all.

As with Broder, I skipped to the Q&A at the end to see whether his spontaneous English speaking was strong enough to shoot from the hip. It is. At 25:09 there’s a long, spontaneous and eloquent anaphora in answer to a question. There was a little bit of “um” and “er” in his answers, but that doesn’t bother me. When people complain to me that a speaker has too much “um” and “er”, it bothers me only that people notice. If people notice, it means that they are not sufficiently absorbed by what the speaker is saying. As with any other mannerism my advice to speakers is not to try to avoid it, but to get more interesting so that people no longer notice.

Within seconds of Selbekk beginning to speak I became so gripped that he could have been wearing a pink woolly cap with a bell on it for all I cared.

His story is horrendous, and shames too many people. The picture it paints of the political establishment is a scandal. When you think of that posturing row of self-satisfied people at the front of the Charlie Hebdo march in Paris a year ago, and overlay that image with the craven appeasement that has nurtured the constant flow of abominations in the name of a religion whose name apparently means “Peace”, it represents an international outrage.

Today it seems that an unguarded reproof of Islamism on Twitter can get you charged with a Hate Crime.

Hate? At 8:00 Selbekk describes the tide of death-threats to which he was subjected as a “Black and muddy wave of hate”. That is an appropriate use of the word. The mild sort of expressed disapproval that these days apparently lands you in court is not.

Islamophobia? I have just sought a definition of “phobia” from Google. Here is the answer: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something. If anyone can tell me what is irrational about not wanting your throat cut I’d be interested to learn it.

People in general want to get on peacefully with people in general. When a faction within those people misbehaves, and disturbs the peace, it is the duty of the delegated authorities to stop them. Is that what we have seen happening?

Selbekk shows us with stark clarity what happens when delegated authorities – and I mean governments the world over – neglect that duty. The world is paying the price.

I salute Selbekk for his courage, as I salute everyone involved with this conference.

Bronwyn Oatley: a star speaker in the making

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A reader of this blog referred me to the 2013 student commencement speech at Middlebury College, Vermont.

In the first minute I was struck by the quality of the speaking which is good enough for me to get really picky; but I could not at first discern what made this so particularly outstanding. I soon learnt.

The speaker is Bronwyn Oatley. She delivered this speech two years ago, so I am critiquing a time-capsule. I wonder how good she is now.

She has learnt her first few sentences. Memorized words sound slightly different from true shooting from the hip, but I am not complaining. It is a good plan as a hump-buster, though her hump lasts a little longer than the bit she has memorized. Again, this is not criticism: very few would spot the nervous symptoms, but I’m paid to do so.

She needs to learn to not pop the microphone. Almost every ‘p’ she utters causes the mic to pop, and it’s a distraction. Never point the mic at your mouth, or your mouth at the mic. Speak across it, not at it.

Her formal opening concerns a quote from G.B.Shaw. A smile forms on my face because many years ago I helped someone prepare a speech based on this very quote. It’s a beauty and I commend her choice.

This is good, clear, confident speaking, and beautifully tailored to her audience. There’s an early section full of in-jokes and reference to college events. These obviously mean nothing to me, and allow me to concentrate on the effect she is having on her audience. The staff members behind her, particularly the man on her left, are enjoying every nuance. The audience in front of her responds exactly as it should. Ultimately this, and not the pontification of someone like me, is the only test that matters.

At 4:27 she begins a good, long anaphora series – “I’m talking about the unreasonable…” This is well-constructed stuff, though she is not quite confident enough of her structure to dispose of her notes. The only fully justified time to look at paper has so far been when she overtly read a quote from the campus newspaper.  Other glances down at the lectern are essentially comfort stuff. In one hour I could have her throwing away paper for ever.

At 5:17 she does something brave. She gets personal and talks about herself. This is difficult to do at the best of times, but she makes it not the best of times by addressing the matter of her own sexuality. She recounts her journey of self-discovery and her coming out to her mother. Though she is talking about herself she arranges that Middlebury College be the hero of the story. The stability and support of the community is what saw her through the crisis.

If a pin dropped it would be deafening. Even when she momentarily tries to lighten the mood with a little personal humour the audience is so moved that silence prevails. The balance line between paying a sincere tribute and lapsing into mawkishness is very narrow, but she finds it. This section is quite remarkable.

She breaks the spell at 7:18. The man on her left smiles, and within seconds the hall is full of laughter and applause. She plays this audience like a violin.

At 9:30 she signals her closing by returning to that G.B.Shaw quotation. Every one of my trainees will testify how much I like it when speakers pair their openings and closings – the matter comes up at every course. It is elegant and professional. It closes the circle and cues the applause. Bronwyn closes beautifully… apart from the microphone popping.

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev returns

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In April 2013 Emory University, in Atlanta Georgia, hosted a talk by the mystic, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.

He has appeared four times previously on this blog, and the first of those remains my most viewed posting. Barely a day passes without there being several visitors to it. Are they coming to study his speaking skill or listen to his wisdom? I neither know nor care, because I have the same question with regard to myself. I luxuriate in how well he speaks, but mainly listen to what he says about life. He does not have all the answers. If he claimed that I would spurn him. What he has is guidance on how we should seek our own answers.

The reason I am featuring him again, apart from merely indulging myself, is because he displays some fundamental lessons for all speakers.

He likes to begin with that chanting. The one time on this blog that he didn’t was his least successful appearance on it. I am convinced it is a focus device, a form of yoga if you will. It lasts about a minute, so it will also double as a hump-buster. The rest of us would have difficulty in employing it, but we all use what we can to get on a roll.

He looks other-worldly, but doesn’t sound it. This is because he absolutely isn’t. His Isha Foundation is a hugely successful business, for which he makes no apology but instead uses its riches to do much valuable philanthropic work.

He doesn’t take himself seriously. His philosophy, yes, his work, yes, himself no. That is such an important lesson for life as well as for speaking. There’s some lovely, gentle self-mockery. The self-mockery extends to beyond himself. Listen to the way he speaks about India. His love for his country is obviously profound, but that doesn’t stop him ribbing it. All of that will charm any audience.

He has a habit of asking what appear to be rhetorical questions, and then asking for an answer. This keeps the audience slightly on the back foot, but also on its toes. If you are on your toes you pay attention. It’s clever.

He is wonderfully adept at classic rhetorical devices. There is a long and elaborate anaphora series “If you become pleasant …” beginning at 12:35. These things are not only really easy to deliver because of their logical progress, but they are just as easy for an audience to absorb. Win – win.

He needs no script: he needs no notes: he needs no slides. Many people think that this is a magical trick, but they are wrong. It is easy: you merely need to know how to do it. He has structured this whole hour-long talk in a way that has each section following logically from its predecessor. Also he knows his subject. You know your subject, so if you likewise structured your material you would not need script, notes or slides either.

But I think the single most important lesson that he provides for speakers comes from who he is and what he does. This man is supremely comfortable in his skin – do we have any doubt at all about that? His very stock-in-trade is that inner peace that I try to get my trainees to embrace. Thus he spares not a nano-thought to himself, but simply focuses on what this audience needs to hear and how best therefore to tell it to them.

That is the ideal mindset for any speaker. That is why he is so good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to him.