The great thing about best/worst lists is that they allow one to take
whatever one's personal opinions are and repackage them as something
vaguely resembling objectivity. Therefore, I shall now settle the issue
once and for all by proposing a simple criterion:
A speaker is not qualified to be considered a contender for "best
speaker" unless s/he can spontaneously utter a contextually appropriate,
and non-self-referential, sentence containing the words 'defenestrate,'
'capybara,' 'promontory' and 'snood'.
There you have it. I have no examples of any utterance meeting the
criterion, and hence there is no best speaker.
Sincerely,
Bill Spruiell
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Atchley, Clinton
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 8:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: the most articulate American
It depends, of course, on your definition of "great" and "articulate,"
but for his ability to work an audience, it has to be Bill Clinton.
Clinton Atchley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Director, Master of Liberal Arts Program
Box 7652
Henderson State University
Arkadelphia, AR 71999
Phone: 870.230.5276
Email: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.hsu.edu/atchlec
________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Susan
van Druten
Sent: Tue 11/25/2008 6:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: the most articulate American
Barack Obama.
But you weren't really listening to Paul. When he said he didn't want
to play best and worst list games, you said you agreed with him.
Clearly, you do not agree with him. I don't particularly think Obama is
a great orator (because politicians are full of b.s.), but since I'd
rather listen to him than Henry and since he's kinda in the news right
now, he's my choice for greatest political living orator. As far as
verbal skills--and not speeches--go, I think Steven Colbert is very
clever. But he's playing the role of a sophist. I also like Mark Twain
and George Orwell and H.L. Mencken.
On Nov 25, 2008, at 5:45 PM, Brad Johnston wrote:
Whadaya talking about? There are Best and Worst lists published every
day. Netflix sends you a DVD movie and asks you to grade it one to five:
hated it, didn't like it, liked it, liked it a lot, loved it. Then their
computer tells you what it thinks you'll grade a movie you haven't seen
yet.
Every speech I ever gave I had a critic sitting in the back - a speech
professor if I could find one.
You don't like my choice, tell us what yours is.
Don't you pay attention to what people write and how they write it? If
you do, you must think some are better than others. Henry's going to be
tough to beat but go ahead and try it. Take a shot.
Anyone else want to take a shot and let Paul hunker down? It's not
Hemingway and it's not George Bush and it's not Mary Higgins Clark. Who
is it? Who's really got a handle on our language?
C'mon, gang. Who's really good at it?
--- On Tue, 11/25/08, Paul E. Doniger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
If you agreed with everything I said, then you wouldn't ask such a
question. I see no value in debating who is or who isn't a better user
of the English language than Henry Kissinger. I'd rather just dwell
joyfully in good language when I come across it and not make
comparisons.
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