“We’ll be in a Hailstorm of Footwear Before Election Day”; “a David Without a Slingshot”; “The Internet is a Battlespace, as are Land, Air, and Sea”--Use of Visual, Evocative Expression to Emphasize One's Point

Here are some recent examples of highly effective communicators using a vivid, evocative expression while emphasizing something and thus making their assertion indelible--examples which, I hope, will inspire the rest of us into similarly imaginative use of the language, especially when we are trying to break through the clutter.

 

• Appearing on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, October 9 (two days after the leak of that 2005 hot mic tape of Donald Trump making lewd comments about women), John Heilemann of Bloomberg Politics saying: “There will (probably) be worse Donald Trump tapes between now and Election Day, and there will probably be worse Hillary Clinton emails between now and Election Day... There are more shoes to drop. We will be in a hailstorm of footwear before we get to November 8.”

• Commenting on the Syrian rebels, who have been valiantly resisting President Assad’s Russian-backed military, former Defense Secretary William Cohen telling BBC last month: “The Syrian rebels are David against Goliath, but they are a David without a slingshot!”

 

• Talking about state-sponsored cyberattacks and why some nations, most notably Russia and China, seem to be getting the better of us, Fran Townsend, former Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, saying on “Face the Nation”: “(The problem is) that we are not treating the Internet as a battlespace as we do land, air, and sea....(The U.S. must realize) that the Internet is a battlespace that we have to fight to control and win!”

 © Copyright 2016  V. J. Singal