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In the world’s first great surviving historical-mythical novel, Homer’s Iliad, we find a description of Stentor (book V, v 783), reportedly a herald who had a voice as loud as 50 men. Unfortunately, Stentor took on the herald of the Olympian gods, Hermes, in a shouting match and lost – fatally so, as his shouting proved too much for his all-too-human lungs.

He remains the precursor of town criers everywhere, as well as loud politicians such as the Reverend Ian Paisley and actors such as Brian Blessed and Gerard ‘this is Sparta’ Butler.

Stentorian nowadays sometimes means ‘over the top’ as much as loud. That is an obvious development of the word.

Stentor also gave his name to a genus of single-cell organisms found on algae. These protozoa look like trumpets, hence the name of Stentor, though you would need a microscope to check the resemblance, as Stentors are only a few millimetres long.