The word "rhetoric" is used in a disparaging way very often these days, but it is a fine and necessary art. Churchill was a brilliant and natural rhetorician who was as adept with the short, sharp retort as he was with structured speeches. The brilliance of his speech after the fall of France was that he combined several rhetorical devices simultaneously and still made it sound like the most natural thing in the world to say. His delivery was also impeccable, because he deliberately kept the drama out of his voice so that the words had more the effect of a old friend dispensing common sense. Like him or loathe him, no one did it better.