The Lost Art of the Great Speech: How to Write It * How to Deliver It

Chapter Seven. Watch Your Language

When the philosopher Aristotle described man as "a language-using animal," he was saying that one of the things that distinguish humans from lower orders of animals is the ability to use language.

Without language, we couldn't pass on our knowledge to others, and the advance of civilization would cease. We couldn't express our thoughts because without language, we couldn't think, except on the most rudimentary level.

It stands to reason, then, that the greater our skill with language, the more clearly we think and the better we express our thoughts. In his famous essay, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell used an analogy to make the connection between language and thought. "A man may take to ...