Inexplicably, they try to convey that impoverishment with outmoded black American diction and a Thelma Ritter-like solidity.

NEWYORKER: Secrets and Lies

As the accidental titan of American destiny, Walter Huston dominates the film with a sly yet grand manner and a prophetic diction.

NEWYORKER: Abraham Lincoln

He was a poet with a blazing love of elevated diction.

ECONOMIST: Lives (7): American poets

With clear diction, a creamy tone and intense focus on language, Upshaw has established herself as one of America's great recitalists, often including songs by American and contemporary composers on her programs.

NPR: Soprano Dawn Upshaw Awarded MacArthur Grant

Part of the way in which the epic legitimizes its ability to talk about so many levels of existence and so many kinds of experience is its style: an ancient authority inheres in that old-time diction, the plushly padded epithets and stately rhythms.

NEWYORKER: Battle Lines

His elitist aesthetics and patrician diction supported a populist ethos that celebrated excellence in carpentry and art-making alike, and hoped to play down the role of money in ruling everything, a shaky position to maintain at any time and maybe impossible to duplicate by anyone brave enough to emulate his example.

WSJ: Robert Hughes | The Most Feared Art Critic of His Time? | By Richard B. Woodward