First and last—the two parts of sentences
that are most emphatic. (My first draft of this sentence was The first
and last parts of sentences are the most emphatic, the last usually the
most.) That is why it pays to see whether you can change the common
order to draw attention to more important words.
Wings, legs, lungs: all were revolutionary
mutations once.
Stacking words at the front of a sentence, abruptly
attaching them to their pronoun with a colon or dash, sets them
off more starkly than does running them in.
Propagandist, moralist, prophet—this is
the rising sequence.
At least two-thirds of us are just plain rich compared
to all the rest of the human family—rich in food, rich in clothes,
rich in entertainment and amusement, rich in leisure, rich.
Imagine this without the exclamatory rich
standing alone at the end.
He reached for a word that expressed "shame,
disgrace, evil reputation, obloquy, opprobrium." His choice:
infamy.
