There is an excellent examination of Obama's victory speech on David Crystal's blog.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Most American commentators just said it was too long. It did, however, sum up well the theme of his campaign.

I was intrigued by Crystal's reference to psycholinguistics and the rule of seven. After my brain-damaging accident, a neuropsychologist drilled me on short-term memorization of number groups. That period of cognitive rehabilitation was damned difficult!

I didn't listen to many commentators about it, but most of my friends and colleagues thought it was simply brilliant. It was the best of all his speeches, I think.

Very interesting, Bob. I hadn't heard of stylistician before, but of course I can discern its meaning. The triptych rhetoric I hadn't heard of before either. He sure did use it, didn't he? I hadn't noticed that until reading Crystal's Blog.