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Was De La Soul right, is three really the magic number? Dive into this model and decide for yourself.
< ... Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam his libris eum malo quam reliquo ornatu villae delectari. Quae ista amicitia est? Stuprata per vim Lucretia a regis filio testata civis se ipsa interemit. Non ego tecum iam ita iocabor, ut isdem his de rebus, cum L. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Qui autem de summo bono dissentit de tota philosophiae ratione dissentit. Atque ab his initiis profecti omnium virtutum et originem et progressionem persecuti sunt. Nemo nostrum istius generis asotos iucunde putat vivere. Te ipsum, dignissimum maioribus tuis, voluptasne induxit, ut adolescentulus eriperes P. Quid enim me prohiberet Epicureum esse, si probarem, quae ille diceret? Unum est sine dolore esse, alterum cum voluptate. Idemque diviserunt naturam hominis in animum et corpus. Qui enim existimabit posse se miserum esse beatus non erit. Hinc ceteri particulas arripere conati suam quisque videro voluit afferre sententiam. At ille non pertimuit saneque fidenter: Istis quidem ipsis verbis, inquit; Nonne igitur tibi videntur, inquit, mala? Scripta sane et multa et polita, sed nescio quo pacto auctoritatem oratio non habet.
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Weave the Rule of Three into your communication.
Practi ...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ita fit cum gravior, tum etiam splendidior oratio. Quo modo autem philosophus loquitur? Cur iustitia laudatur? Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Est autem etiam actio quaedam corporis, quae motus et status naturae congruentis tenet; Nec tamen ullo modo summum pecudis bonum et hominis idem mihi videri potest. Si de re disceptari oportet, nulla mihi tecum, Cato, potest esse dissensio. Non enim solum Torquatus dixit quid sentiret, sed etiam cur.
Heri, inquam, ludis commissis ex urbe profectus veni ad vesperum. Inde sermone vario sex illa a Dipylo stadia confecimus. Non minor, inquit, voluptas percipitur ex vilissimis rebus quam ex pretiosissimis. Quid me istud rogas? Sit, inquam, tam facilis, quam vultis, comparatio voluptatis, quid de dolore dicemus? Ista ipsa, quae tu breviter: regem, dictatorem, divitem solum esse sapientem, a te quidem apte ac rotunde; Contemnit enim disserendi elegantiam, confuse loquitur. Id et fieri posse et saepe esse factum et ad voluptates percipiendas maxime pertinere.
Ita graviter et severe voluptatem secrevit a bono. Quod vestri non item. A primo, ut opinor, animantium ortu petitur origo summi boni. Huius ego nunc auctoritatem sequens idem faciam. Iam contemni non poteris. Si qua in iis corrigere voluit, deteriora fecit. Cenasti in vita numquam bene, cum omnia in ista Consumis squilla atque acupensere cum decimano. Erit enim instructus ad mortem contemnendam, ad exilium, ad ipsum etiam dolorem. Dat enim intervalla et relaxat. Quid in isto egregio tuo officio et tanta fide-sic enim existimo-ad corpus refers? Et certamen honestum et disputatio splendida! omnis est enim de virtutis dignitate contentio. Vidit Homerus probari fabulam non posse, si cantiunculis tantus irretitus vir teneretur;
Overuse of any communication technique can become jarring, and the Rule of Three should simply be seen as one of the arrows in your toolkit. To that end, mixing your approach and changing the rhythm of your sentence structure is important.
In addition to rhythm, sometimes using two examples or points can be useful to provide a binary or contrasting view rather than pointing to a pattern.
Martin Luther King Jr— I have a dream.
The Rule of Three is a feature of many of King’s speeches. This site breaks down his most famous speech, and captures this key example:
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Note that even the list of six items — black men and white men etc. — has been grouped in three groups of two, to maintain the rhythm of the Rule of Three.
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Evidence of the Rule of Three can be traced back as far as Aristotle and biblical writing. Aristotle, inherently captured it in his Rules of Rhetoric, though it is unclear who formally named and identified the ‘rule’, thus we’ve left the model uncredited.
My Notes
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