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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. Sin autem ad animum, falsum est, quod negas animi ullum esse gaudium, quod non referatur ad corpus. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Quae sunt igitur communia vobis cum antiquis, iis sic utamur quasi concessis; Atque haec coniunctio confusioque virtutum tamen a philosophis ratione quadam distinguitur. Tum Piso: Quoniam igitur aliquid omnes, quid Lucius noster? Cum praesertim illa perdiscere ludus esset. Dic in quovis conventu te omnia facere, ne doleas. Quae tamen a te agetur non melior, quam illae sunt, quas interdum optines. Te ipsum, dignissimum maioribus tuis, voluptasne induxit, ut adolescentulus eriperes P. Tibi hoc incredibile, quod beatissimum. Deinde disputat, quod cuiusque generis animantium statui deceat extremum. At enim, qua in vita est aliquid mali, ea beata esse non potest. Quae quo sunt excelsiores, eo dant clariora indicia naturae. Hoc ille tuus non vult omnibusque ex rebus voluptatem quasi mercedem exigit. Et nemo nimium beatus est; Et si in ipsa gubernatione neglegentia est navis eversa, maius est peccatum in auro quam in palea. Sed haec nihil sane ad rem; Et quod est munus, quod opus sapientiae? Isto modo ne improbos quidem, si essent boni viri. Placet igitur tibi, Cato, cum res sumpseris non concessas, ex illis efficere, quod velis?
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Weave the Rule of Three into your communication.
Practi ...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Age sane, inquam. Cupit enim dícere nihil posse ad beatam vitam deesse sapienti. Quod autem principium officii quaerunt, melius quam Pyrrho; Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Hoc non est positum in nostra actione. Ego quoque, inquit, didicerim libentius si quid attuleris, quam te reprehenderim. Quia nec honesto quic quam honestius nec turpi turpius. Nunc dicam de voluptate, nihil scilicet novi, ea tamen, quae te ipsum probaturum esse confidam. Hic nihil fuit, quod quaereremus. Illum mallem levares, quo optimum atque humanissimum virum, Cn. Suam denique cuique naturam esse ad vivendum ducem.
Bonum negas esse divitias, praeposìtum esse dicis? Confecta res esset. Sed tu istuc dixti bene Latine, parum plane. In qua si nihil est praeter rationem, sit in una virtute finis bonorum; Tum Piso: Quoniam igitur aliquid omnes, quid Lucius noster?
Cur tantas regiones barbarorum pedibus obiit, tot maria transmisit? Saepe ab Aristotele, a Theophrasto mirabiliter est laudata per se ipsa rerum scientia; An hoc usque quaque, aliter in vita? Cum praesertim illa perdiscere ludus esset. Egone non intellego, quid sit don Graece, Latine voluptas? Hoc est vim afferre, Torquate, sensibus, extorquere ex animis cognitiones verborum, quibus inbuti sumus. In eo enim positum est id, quod dicimus esse expetendum. Quodsi ipsam honestatem undique pertectam atque absolutam.
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.
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