The OG Language Tech

Hey friend, Katie here.

If you’re following me on X, I’ve been on a tear lately about originality.

There’s an epidemic of copying on the platform and on social media in general. 

Written content that is bland, clichéd and repetitive over time.

Content that is, at best, paraphrasing other people’s ideas, and at worst plagiarising them.

With AI on the rise, we’ll see a massive proliferation of this cheap content.

To combat this poor use of modern tech, I’m called to recall the original tech we can be using to write originally.

This OG language tech is the art of rhetoric.

Rhetoric is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, through the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.

Rhetoric is at work in most good content, so the trick is to increase our awareness of it, so we can be employing it in our own writing.

Take for example this recent post by Dan Koe:

The middle section is packed with rhetorical devices.

• The repeated ‘It means you’ employs anaphora, using the same words at the beginning of successive sentences.

• Those sentences use the rule of three, a trio forming an effective structure, and they increase in length with a climactic effect.

• The ‘bubble of comfort’ is a metaphor for a protective haven.

• The bubble line employs antithesis, with ‘finally left’ and ‘go back’ hinging on the ‘worst thing you can do’.

It’s a clever set of technical tools, skillfully employed.

Evidently Dan is practiced in the art of rhetoric.

Stick with me, and you will be too.

Going forward my emails with the subject OG Tech will be breaking down content for you in these technical ways.

I so can’t wait to do this again, that I might not wait long at all.

Looking forward to it.

All warm best,

Katie

PS. If you have any questions or thoughts, hit ‘Reply’ and shoot me an email. I’ll get back to you.