Mark Forsyth on Perell — Writing Formulas Everybody Should Know

Author: David Perell (interviewer); Mark Forsyth (interviewee — author of The Elements of Eloquence, The Etymologicon, The Horologicon); writingexamples.com host (closing analysis segment) Year: 2024-07-24 (published) Original file: /CLIPPINGS/Writing Formulas Everybody Should Know — Mark Forsyth.md (287 lines) Source type: video-transcript (YouTube; ~52 minutes Perell interview + ~2-minute closing host analysis segment) Original URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulhrXgpjveA

Core Argument

The 2,500-year-old taxonomy of classical rhetorical figures (progressio, diacope, chiasmus, anaphora, anadiplosis, tricolon, etc.) operates as cognitive memory-architecture — these formulas fit specific shape-slots in the human brain so well that they overwrite actual recall (Wizard of Oz "fly my pretties fly" isn't in the movie; we re-remember it that way because the diacope is structurally irresistible). Western culture lost appreciation for rhetoric when the Romantics displaced it as "calculation" incompatible with "passion" — but the great writers and lyricists (Paul McCartney inserting anadiplosis deliberately into his manuscript drafts; JFK's seven chiasmuses; Yoda's fear-to-hate-to-anger ladder) still use these formulas, just without naming them. Forsyth's program: learn the formulas by example, not by name; keep a cheat sheet; write fast after thorough mental preparation, because if it flows out of you it will flow into the reader.

Key Contributions

• Progressio = long series of antitheses (Katy Perry hot/cold; Dickens best/worst; Ecclesiastes time-to-weep; marriage vow)
• Diacope = "verbal sandwich" (free-at-last; Bond-James-Bond; To-be-or-not-to-be; Run-Forrest-run; Zed's-dead-baby-Zed's-dead)
• Chiasmus = symmetrical reversal (JFK ask-not + mankind-end-war + never-negotiate-out-of-fear; Bush justice-to-enemies; Obama you-stood-up-for-America)
• "Feels-like-must-be-right" cognitive assent triggered by chiasmus's symmetry
• Anaphora (Churchill "we shall fight them"; Lennon "Imagine") + epistrophe (Obama "yes we can")
• Periodic sentence (Kipling "If" — main verb held until end)
• Anadiplosis = clause-chain (Yoda fear→hate→anger→dark side); McCartney British Library manuscript proves DELIBERATE addition
• Polyptoton = same word different grammatical form (Shakespeare Sonnet 116 "love is not love that alters when it alteration finds"; Taylor Swift "haters gonna hate hate hate hate")
• Tricolon = power of three (I-came-I-saw-I-conquered; Good-Bad-Ugly; lies-damn-lies-statistics); Churchill "blood, sweat, toil, and tears" memory-corrected to 3
• Isocolon = balanced halves (To err is human, to forgive divine)
• Adynaton = listing impossibles (Auden "till China and Africa meet")
• FALSE MEMORY VIA RHETORIC mechanism — Wizard of Oz proof
• Writing-is-radio-plus-more — no tone/gestures available; reproduce voice from scratch via first-paragraph word-choice (a man → a chap → a dude → a gentleman; walking → sauntering = establishing shot)
• Shakespeare as "wonderful thief" — took Plutarch's Antony+Cleopatra "barge she sat in" passage near-verbatim; added alliteration + iambic; "thief who breaks into your house and tidies it up"
• Jazz-musician-scales analogy for rhetorical practice
• Iambic-pentameter improvisation as scales-practice ("the chair is on the carpet in the room")
• Stoshan (Russian word for sudden burst of work before deadline)
• Walk-around-block then write-fast-so-it-flows-into-reader

Limitations

• Hybrid transcript: ~95% Perell-Forsyth interview + final ~2 minutes Seinfeld NYT op-ed close-read by writingexamples.com host (emotional-ping-pong technique). Distinguish source attribution.
• All quoted dialogue is [PARAPHRASED] from auto-transcript.
• Forsyth's Romantic critique is opinionated literary-historical claim, not empirical scholarship. Worth holding alongside Whyte/Karlsson summoning-essayism as a real tension rather than treating either as settled.
• Some rhetorical-figure attributions (e.g., Henry VII "monks monks monks" alleged last words) Forsyth himself flags as folk-tradition not verified primary source.
• The "ancient Greeks couldn't agree on half these names" claim is true but Forsyth's cheat-sheet advice may underweight scholarly precision for those who want to discuss these figures with classicists or rhetoricians.
• McCartney British Library manuscript anecdote is presented without exhibit citation; verifiable but not cited.

Images

• YouTube thumbnail (embedded; not downloaded locally)