Mark Forsyth

Rhyme & Reason: A short history of English poetry is out now, and available to buy here:

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a defence of modern architecture. https://t.co/M3AvIxExRq

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a post about Smart Alecs, Clever Dicks and Peeping Toms. https://t.co/kEVCoDXsNi

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

@KruJuice @audible_com @AmazonKindle Thank you.

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a post about whodunnits and English villages. https://t.co/mv8MqSKUkX

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written an etymological post about the cloths of the Middle East https://t.co/7OFWNZQ4fS

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

@ArmandDAngour Thanks.

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

@ArmandDAngour Is there anything at all known about Romano-British music? (I’m in a wine-soaked conversation, and being asked about stuff beyond my ken).

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a post about hidden Arthurian words in modern English. https://t.co/NHjGLXfUMC

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a post about where surnames come from, and why a posh surname means a lot less than most people think. https://t.co/80z5DqykQM

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

Snow in central London! That’s St Paul’s Cathedral in the background.

[John Rentoul @JohnRentoul]

From the archive, 10 years ago

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a post on the etymology of dog breeds, explaining why Great Danes are not Danish, and Dachshunds are terrifying. https://t.co/GKfQp3sD2p

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a post about how pirates attacked the metric system, and what a 'far cry' really is. https://t.co/FnXbMa7iWm

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a little piece on corporate cancel-culture and medieval Christianity. https://t.co/gYaDTcNtge

[How I Write Clips @PerellClips]

One of the most memorable lines in all movie history was actually never said.

"There's a bit in The Wizard of Oz where the Wicked Witch of the West says 'Fly, my pretties, fly' to the flying monkeys. Everyone remembers that line. It's not there."

Mark Forsyth explains how this misquote came about:

Mark: "She says at one point, 'Fly, fly, fly, fly.' She never says 'Fly, my pretties, fly.' But we all remember it as that, because diacope is such a powerful figure of rhetoric that we change it."

David: "What you are saying is that our minds have memory receptors in certain shapes. If you want something to be memorable, there are these little rhetorical tactics that shape our words and ideas so that they fit into the slot of the human brain."

Mark: "That's exactly it."

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a little piece in defence of horoscopes, even though I don't believe in them myself. https://t.co/KZenKPyREz

[Mark Forsyth @Inkyfool]

I've written a post about book titles and song titles and what they do, going from Vanity Fair to Bohemian Rhapsody.
https://t.co/CQ9nNsFZXO

[David Perell @david_perell]

Mark Forsyth is one of the world's leading experts on what makes a piece of writing memorable.

He's famous for a book called The Elements of Eloquence, which follows the writing strategy of writers like Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, and also musicians like the Beatles and Taylor Swift.

We went through these tools together, one by one, so you can use them in your own writing.

Timestamps:
Technique 1: Polyptoton
Techniques 2 & 3: Chiasmus and Isocolon
Technique 4: Tricolon
Technique 5: Anaphora
Technique 6: Epistrophe
Technique 7: Synesthesia
Technique 8: Personification
Technique 9: Schesis Onomaton
Technique 10: Paradox
Technique 11: Veridical Paradox
Technique 12: Hyperbole
Technique 13: Iambic Pentameter

I've shared the full conversation with Mark below. If you'd rather watch the full thing on YouTube or listen on Apple or Spotify, check out the reply tweets.

I've shared clips from the conversation in the replies as well.

[How I Write Clips @PerellClips]

"Yesterday" is one of The Beatles' legendary songs. But you've probably haven't noticed what the song is doing.

Mark Forsyth breaks it down:

"John Lennon complained about that song, because it was written by Paul McCartney. But John complained that the song goes nowhere. And it's true that it goes nowhere."

"The first verse begins with the word yesterday and ends with the word yesterday. And then the second verse does exactly the same thing with suddenly:

'Suddenly, there's a shadow hanging over me. I'm not half the man I used to be. Oh, yesterday came suddenly.' And then the third verse does the same thing with yesterday again."

"It's very much a song about somebody being stuck in the same place. He starts on yesterday, finishes on yesterday. He starts on suddenly, finishes on suddenly. He doesn't get anywhere."

David: "Through aesthetics, you can communicate something that enhances the words you're trying to say. You could say words about being stuck and you can show the stuckness by going from yesterday, to suddenly, back to yesterday. The circle closes where it began."

@Inkyfool

[How I Write Clips @PerellClips]

What if we are making poetry more complicated than it is? After all, Shakespeare wrote for the masses:

"People think you have to have a degree in English in order to understand poetry. Shakespeare wasn't writing for people with degrees in English, because degrees in English didn't exist."

"He was writing for a mass market who wanted to hear that beautiful sound. The Globe Theatre could take 3,000 people. The population of London at the time was 200,000. If you scale that up for today, the equivalent Globe would be a 150,000-seater stadium. And Shakespeare had to fill that every day."

"Tickets cost the same price as a loaf of bread. You had people from the underclass right up to the top of society, and they were all there to enjoy Shakespeare."

"You can't understand every word of Shakespeare unless you've got the text in front of you. That's ok. Just let it flow over you. You don't need to understand everything."

- Mark Forsyth (@Inkyfool)