title: The Gift of the Gab by: Crystal, David published: 2016-01-01 read: 2020-06 preview

In a craze of loving language and its analysis, I randomly picked up a number of David Crystal books. In The Gift of the Gab: How Eloquence Works I found a book that explores the power of language from a linguistic point of view and, as in any of Crystal’s books, shows how we (should) use words.

Crystal examines different aspects of eloquence, including rhythm, tone, and body language. He provides examples from famous speeches, literature, and everyday conversations to show how these elements come together to create powerful speech. Central is Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” speech of 2008, and shows how near-perfect that speech was – from the simple use of parallelism and an awareness of what not to say, to his brilliant conclusion constructed around dreams and answers.

Learn here how to structure a good speech to telling stories and engaging an audience. Crystal also looks at the history of rhetoric and how the principles of eloquence have been applied over time.

Crystal’s conversational style works here, too, and mingling theory with real-world examples makes this book, too, never tedious or boring.

Read it if you want to improve your speaking skills – or criticise that of others, for that matter – or just to understand what makes effective communication.