Copy Writing Agency - The Meaning of Deipnosophist

Words Works - The Meaning of Deipnosophist

How about this:

Deipnosophist (dee-ip-noso-fist) - one who excels at conversations at the dinner table.

Two things that we all love: eating and talking. What could be better?

This comes from two Greek words: deipnon, the chief meal or dinner, and sophistes a clever or wise man. It does in fact originate from a 15-volume work entitled Deipnosophistai, written by the Greek Athenaeus after AD 228, about a group of learned men talking about food at a banquet. But we all knew that didn’t we?

Nowadays it’s probably best used to refer to the more trivial idea of pleasant chit-chat to pass the time while having tea.

“Oh Charles, you simply must come for dinner with my Uncle Fritz. He is an amazing deipnosophist.”

Archived in the category: General musings, Word of the month, Write words
Posted by: Gareth Chadwick on Friday, May 15, 2009

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Spoken like a President

Spoken like a President

Archived in the category: General musings, Write words

Nice to see that Barack Obama - lauded as the most powerful public speaker in American politics for a generation - has been using some of our favourite writing tips in his speeches.

Remember three’s company, where we talked about grouping your points into three to create more impact? Well they don’t get much more power full than these three:
“If there is anyone out there who still doubts America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy - tonight is your answer.”

They are the opening lines of his victory speech in the November presidential election - widely regarded as one of the finest speeches in modern US politics.

Here’s another bit:
“It’s been a long time coming, but today, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” And just to show he’s not a one-trick pony, he uses another technique to great effect, the power of pairs. This is a favourite politicians’ trick of not saying one thing if you can equally say two, adding emphasis to the message.

So he says, “people who waited three hours and four hours…”, instead of saying the less powerful, ’people who waited hours…’

There’s also a lesson there about being specific. By specifying three hours and four hours, rather than a vague ‘hours’, it resonates more strongly with the audience and the impact is that much greater.

Let’s hope his policies are as effective as his speeches…

Posted by: Gareth Chadwick on Tuesday, January 13, 2009