QOTD

[redbird]

Useful advice from agrumer:

I'm a fan of rhetoric. I'm not saying that everybody needs to talk like Vulcans. But your rhetoric should mean something. If you tell your reader/listener to ask themselves something, you should actually want them to ask it of themselves. *

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, and so many times they really, really don't want me to ask it of myself, because my assumptions are at such right angles with theirs.

This is also why I wish people would avoid the rhetorical phrase, "Now, you're probably thinking x." Because I am rarely thinking x. This is not like that "trick" where you can pop out with, "But emus don't live in Denmark!" and amaze your audience.

[redbird]

Yes, and so many times they really, really don't want me to ask it of myself, because my assumptions are at such right angles with theirs.

Quite, sometimes in ways that are sufficiently disjoint that they haven't even considered that my axioms may exist, let alone that I, the particular person they're talking to, might hold those axioms.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This happens to me a lot, too. "Surely no one would suggest --" "I would."