Earlier in the speech Churchill used the same rhetorical device of in a positive sentence full of words with french/latin roots:
A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all.
(That form of repetition seems to be called anaphora, I just learned.)
It’s interesting that people often comment on the Anglo-Saxon/Germanic roots of that famous phrase – but nobody finds it weird to use Germanic words in a (defensive) war against Germany and eschewing French words in support of France in this war. The explanation seems to be the specific English context: there the connotation of Anglo-Saxon as the language of the people seems to override any germanic associations.
A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all.
https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-fin...
(That form of repetition seems to be called anaphora, I just learned.)
It’s interesting that people often comment on the Anglo-Saxon/Germanic roots of that famous phrase – but nobody finds it weird to use Germanic words in a (defensive) war against Germany and eschewing French words in support of France in this war. The explanation seems to be the specific English context: there the connotation of Anglo-Saxon as the language of the people seems to override any germanic associations.