The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase is a non-fiction book by Mark Forsyth published in 2013.

An example of its deliberate overuse given by Forsyth is: Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast; Forsyth defines this as the "use of one word as different parts of speech or in different grammatical forms".

The example quoted by Forsyth is: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.Reference to one thing by an enumeration of its parts, or by a list of synonyms.

Calling this "extended merism, the dismemberment of the loved one", Forsyth quotes: Her yellow locks exceed the beaten gold; Her sparkling eyes in heav'n a place deserve; Her forehead high and fair of comely mold Where one sense is described in terms of another.

An example given by Forsyth is Eduard Hanslick's criticism of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto as "music that stinks to the ear".

When a sentence is deliberately left unfinished, with the ending to be supplied by the audience's imagination.

As an example, Forsyth cites Richard Lovelace's line, "Stone walls do not a prison make" when the more natural wording would be "Stone walls do not make a prison", adding that in any case the statement is "factually incorrect".

Forsyth give this example: We glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience, experience, and experience, hope, and hope maketh man not ashamed A sentence that is not complete grammatically before the final clause or phrase, such as Rudyard Kipling's poem If— Forsyth contrasts hypotaxis, as a complex style of writing using many subordinate clauses, with parataxis, a style of writing in short, simple sentences.

As described by Forsyth, who admits "how complicated this all is", rhetorical questions can be mainly divided into: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Forsyth discusses the effect of different verse forms A series of clauses using the same verb.

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning and end of a sentence or clause to emphasize circularity.

Howse also criticised several mistakes and wrongly attributed quotes, hoping "the publishers, having let those through, will mend them in the many future printings the book deserves" .

[2] The Wall Street Journal review said Forsyth is "adept at adding spice to received wisdom and popularizing the findings of academic linguists" and emphasizes that "potent rhetorical devices are all around us".