Friday Meanderings: Iceland, India, New Zealand, and The Power of Rhetorical Devices
Super glad to have you here reading The Cosmobiologist!
I’m still in a very experimental stage with all of my writing and with what this newsletter is becoming, and would very much value hearing your opinions about what you like to read, ideas of mine you want to know more about, and ways that we can carve The Cosmobiologist into something that will support your own endeavors to know more about our place in the cosmos.
Journeys
It’s looking quite likely that I’ll be leading the Smithsonian Student Travel trip to Iceland again this summer. If you know some parents of teens (14-17) who are looking for an incredible experience for their children, you can share this trip exploring Geology, Climate Change, and Renewable Energy in Iceland with them!
Protoplanet is planning a Spaceward Bound India trek this year to explore Ladakh. I might be joining as well, so keep an eye out for opportunities and ways to follow along.
This year marks the 150th year of New Zealand and U.S. political relations. To celebrate, I’ll be traveling to New Zealand to share in some science communication and education endeavors with Haritina Mogoșanu and Samuel Leske of Milky Way Kiwi, The New Zealand Astrobiology Network (NZAN), and Star Safari.
I’m still waiting to hear on my application for Library of Congress position as the Chair of Astrobiology. It’s definitely not a guarantee (there are several other incredible applicants that I know of and probably more that I don’t), but this is one that would really be remarkable for my career and I feel comfortable putting it out there in the void. If it should pass that I don’t get the position, I’ll just have to work even harder to strengthen a future application (but fingers crossed on this one!).
I’m often embattled by the opposing urges to become ever more involved in the digital world and the technologies of tomorrow or to break away from everything and escape into the wilderness and become the source of some future legend. I think we can have a bit of both, but I recently had a dream about escaping into a life in the forest, so I had ChatGPT generate an image based on the dream. What it came up with was pretty legit!
The Power of Rhetorical Devices in Our Communication
Language is more than just a means of communication—it’s an art form and perhaps humanity’s oldest technology.
The best writers, speakers, and storytellers don’t just convey ideas; they craft them with rhythm, structure, and power.
Rhetorical devices are the tools of this craft, shaping words into something that moves our minds and stirs our emotions. It’s through rhetoric—the art of persuasion—that our language becomes powerful enough to alter the ways other people think, feel, and act. Think of your favorite lines from famous speeches or films or in writing; there’s a good chance they all include various rhetorical devices to alter their impact.
I was recently checking out an episode of David Perell’s podcast How I Write that featured Mark Forsyth speaking about how we make our writing memorable, and it made me want to spend some time exploring a variety of rhetorical devices and some of their use examples in the great writing and speaking of our past (and maybe to help me be a bit more thoughtful in how I sculpt my own writing and my public talks).
From Shakespeare’s plays to presidential speeches and from ancient philosophy to modern cinema, these techniques leave a lasting impression. There are so many great examples from poetry to video game monologues and more. Just for a little fun here, I have a list of some rhetorical devices and some examples of each below:
Anaphora — Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses
Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have a Dream
“So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania...” (MLK was great at including a variety of rhetorical devices in his speeches and writing).
Epistrophe — Repetition at the end of successive clauses
Kendrick Lamar - DNA
“loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA, cocaine quarter piece, got war and peace inside my DNA, I got power, poison, and joy inside my DNA, I got hustle through, ambition, flow inside my DNA.”
Chiasmus — Reversal of structure in two related clauses
John F. Kennedy - Inaugural Address
“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
Antimetabole — A type of chiasmus where the same words are reversed
We use this one so much. Here are just a few common examples:
“Oh, you have, have you?”
“Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail”
“Plan your work and work your plan”
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going”
“All for one and one for all”
Alliteration — Repetition of consonant sounds
V for Vendetta (2005) - the entire alliteration scene is absolutely incredible (rehearsing this has been in the rotation of my daily speaking practice a good deal over the years)
Polysyndeton — Excessive conjunctions for emphasis
This is one I often use in my own writing and speaking. I love the use of extra conjunctions to bring some depth to what I’m sharing. Here’s just one good example from the film Inglourious Basterds (2009):
“And the German will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the German will be sickened by us. And the German will talk about us. And the German will fear us” -Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt)
Diacope — Repetition of a word or phrase with intervening words
From “Oh, Captain, my Captain” to “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” there are lots of fun examples, but here’s one from the film Rambo: First Blood ()
Trautman: If you won't end this now, they will kill you. Is that what you want? It's over, Johnny. It's over!
Rambo: Nothing is over! Nothing! You don't just turn it off! It wasn't my war!
These are only a few examples. There are a boatload of more rhetorical devices.
Great rhetoric isn’t just about making an argument—it’s about making our writing and speaking unforgettable.
After all, our words and actions shape our world, and our world is shaped by our words and actions.
Check out the entire episode with Mark Forsyth here:
Thanks so much to everyone our there who’s reading The Cosmobiologist. I have to say it is rather humbling to know that so many of you are interested in sharing in this journey with me.
If you want to share on any of my adventures, meet up for a coffee in person someday, chat about the topics I share here, or just talk about anything and everything, feel free to reach out!
Dream picture is out of this world!