Lists. We love them. We use them. We write "1. Make a list" at the beginning of each list just so we have the pleasure of drawing a line through it and thinking "Aaah. Completed."

But lists aren't just insanely satisfying—they're also one of the simplest and most effective rhetorical devices for getting an audience to follow along. List-making also presents the appearance of being exhaustive, implying that the speaker hasn't left anything out. Kind of like when someone says, "there are three types of people in this world…"

The list style is particularly effective for Wilson's Fourteen Points because of the complexity of World War I. Dozens of nations were involved, and Wilson knew the Allies would be responsible for negotiating all their territorial claims. Enumeration lets him reserve a part of the speech to deal with each key nation: Italy, Belgium, the Balkans, Russia…

You know how the saying goes: the list goes on.