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Clinamen

thuswise to swerve

"Rhetoric is the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral language"

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Submitted by Jim Brown on February 1, 2007 - 11:22am.

This is the first sentence of the Wikipedia entry for Rhetoric. Recently, I removed the word oral from that sentence. Another user (Tito4000) changed it back and requested that I raise the issue on the discussion page.

I have posted something to the discussion page (I haven't heard anything back yet). It will be interesting to see how this "discussion" shakes out. As I note in my comment on the discussion page, there is little doubt that Rhetoric has focused on spoken language at many times in history. However, when defining the "concept" of Rhetoric, it seems to me to be more useful to define rhetoric broadly. Then, we can move to a description of the different "rhetorics" that have popped up over the past couple of thousand years.

We'll see how this goes...

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"The atoms, as their own weight bears them down plumb through the void, at scarce determined times, in scarce determined places, from their course decline a little- call it, so to speak, mere changed trend. For were it not their wont thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one, like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void; and then collisions ne'er could be nor blows among the primal elements; and thus nature would never have created aught."

-Lucretius, Of The Nature of Things

About Me

My name is Jim Brown and I'm a Ph.D. Candidate in Rhetoric at the University of Texas. I teach courses in Rhetoric, Literature, and New Media. This blog mostly focuses on my academic work, but you'll also find occasional posts about music or baseball. I also maintain two other blogs, and you can see all of my blog writings by viewing this RSS feed. I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. This lets you know that I'm kind of a masochist and explains the name of my dog.

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