(n.) Choice of words for the expression of ideas; the construction, disposition, and application of words in discourse, with regard to clearness, accuracy, variety, etc.; mode of expression; language; as, the diction of Chaucer's poems.
Example Sentences:
(1) The prose rhythm and colloquial diction here work against exaggeration, but allow for humour.
(2) The enigmatic patience of the sentences, the pedantic syntax, the peculiar antiquity of the diction, the strange recessed distance of the writing, in which everything seems milky and sub-aqueous, just beyond reach – all of this gives Sebald his particular flavour, so that sometimes it seems that we are reading not a particular writer but an emanation of literature.
(3) If you ever feel tempted to say "status quo" or "cul de sac", for instance, Orwell will sneer at you for "pretentious diction".
(4) Now 86, Daddy – the 11th Duke of Marlborough - has the garbled, sticky plum crumble diction of the irredeemably posh.
(5) He turns his attention to today's male movie stars and their penchant for mumbling (Hopkins has always prided himself on his diction).
(6) Discriminant analyses, using both untransformed and range-corrected data made excellent post-dictions of group membership.
(7) Americans don't have passports, we don't meet many foreigners, and we think proper English diction is an indicator of condescension or homosexuality.
(8) The diction of the original tells us that its author was, broadly speaking, a northerner.
(9) It's a beautifully musical film all the way through, in fact, partly an effect of Katie Johnson's delivery as Mrs W : incredible gentle diction, all sweet bleats and trilly intonation.
(10) Only his co-host, Loyd Grossman, had a voice and diction to, if anything, rival Frost's own.
(11) This section was presented by Loyd Grossman, whose diction and presenting style were even more distinctive than Frost's.
(12) Nor could the chosen diction of the American have been further from the socially diagnostic wit of Jane Austen or the stuffed-pudding plenitude of the young Dickens.
(13) In one letter (to her parents), she raved about Michael Redgrave's Hamlet saying it made Olivier's 'beautiful diction, dramatic pauses, loud music and despairing cries sound like pure unadulterated ham'.
(14) Diction and fractures of resin teeth were more common problems in maxillae; cheek and lip biting was a more frequent postinsertion complication in the treatment of mandibles.
(15) Sebald's seemingly passive prose was in fact – to borrow Marianne Moore's memorable phrase – "diction galvanised against inertia".
(16) With the Instagram posts showing no sign of stopping we’ve come up with a short guide to the Chechen ruler’s dramatic diction to help you understand who the “dastardly villains” are; what threat they pose to “the nation that rose from its knees”.
(17) But I never really responded to the antique diction and syntax - it struck me at times as even older than the original.
(18) Twain would have been apoplectic at the presumption: one of the letters he included in his drafts, reprinted in the autobiography's first volume, is a rebuke to an editor who dared to alter the great man's diction in his essay on Joan of Arc .
(19) He takes his 19th-century Gothic diction from the Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter , and a fair amount of his obsessive extremism from the Austrian novelist Thomas Bernhard .
(20) The tennis player Annabel Croft, when meeting her genuinely homeless "buddy" David, said, with the immaculate diction of a woman regarding the drinks tray at a garden party: "I have been very nervous about who I was going to meet but I'm pleasantly surprised!"
Elocution
Definition:
(n.) Utterance by speech.
(n.) Oratorical or expressive delivery, including the graces of intonation, gesture, etc.; style or manner of speaking or reading in public; as, clear, impressive elocution.
(n.) Suitable and impressive writing or style; eloquent diction.
Example Sentences:
(1) So those of you with a strong Barnsley accent had better get elocution lessons.
(2) Three girls were molested within minutes of each other as they attended an elocution lesson at his home, while another was set upon as he drove her home from a tennis centre.
(3) This Mason was Mr Elocution, if you like, the personification of affectation and lingering insult or innuendo.
(4) Three girls were molested while he gave them elocution lessons; another after he invited her to sing at a supposed recording session at a BBC studio in Manchester.
(5) Asked why he had asked some of the girls to shower prior to elocution lessons in order to "correct their posture", to be measured and to wear very loose upper clothing, he replied: "It's a programme I have devised."
(6) She is glad that they did, and praises Hollander's rendition of her grandfather's spellbinding voice and perfect elocution.
(7) He assaulted others at his home, having invited them on the pretence of giving elocution lessons.
(8) Hall, now 83, attacked one of his victims within moments of her being sick, on her 13th birthday; three were molested while he gave them "elocution lessons"; another after he invited her to sing at a supposed recording session at a BBC studio in Manchester, and another girl attacked after being given a steak dinner and champagne.
(9) Thatcher appears, looking like a possessed marionette, her bossy elocution a declaration of intent, as if she means her voice to carry, to be heard generations on.
(10) He quickly progressed to the gramophone department and began presenting jazz programmes, but was thwarted by a head of variety whose objection to the sound of his voice compelled him to take elocution lessons.
(11) The same first a of the "aka" was selected and at its end was concatenated a voiced murmur taken from an "aga" elocution from the same speaker, and the minimum duration of the voiced murmur necessary for it to be perceived was measured.