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Mind your language

The rhetorical power of ‘never’, from Ian Paisley to King Lear

...via Winston Churchill and Peter Pan

20 September 2014

9:00 AM

20 September 2014

9:00 AM

He won’t be remembered as Lord Bannside, but Ian Paisley will be remembered for shouting: ‘Never, never, never, never.’ The fourth never was hardly a shout, by his standards, but merged into the roar of the crowd.

Never is a useful word for rhetoric. In our mind’s ear we remember how Churchill stressed the word and paused as he said: ‘Never in the field of human conflict.’

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