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Have you thought of the power of questions?

There are many different types of questions. Here are just a few of them:

Questions

Questions are vitally important in writing, especially in getting people's attention.

Look at this:

I am going to talk today about Thomas Clarkson and slavery. Thomas Clarkson was the person who did more than anyone else to drive that evil out of the world.

(yawn...)

Now this: 

Who has ever heard of Thomas Clarkson? Nobody? I am horrified. Doesn't anyone realise that he is the one person who abolished slavery throughout the world?

Well, no actually...

Advertisers know this very well.

“Have you had a road accident recently? We can help...”
“How is your smile? Smile in a day with Darwood and Tanner dental specialists...”

Don't take it too far.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen? 

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills? 

Not really, although the belief that Jesus took a gap year in UK is now the unofficial liberal anthem. 

Praise works well too as a question (Anacoenosis = cuddling up).

How good is this then?

Who else could have done that? 

How sweet is that?

Or insults (epiplexis = beating up):

What is the point?
Why go on?
How could you?
Do you really mean that?
Could you repeat that please?

Or more simply (more Anacoenosis):

Why not?
What's to stop us?
Why shouldn't we?

Go on, you know you want to!

I put these obvious questions in because they form the backbone of civilization.

If, instead of carrying placards, instead of writing that biting comment, we could once again engage in civilized questioning in a polite way, might we not learn something?

More on this in the incoming section. Can you wait that long?

A Level students only:
These types of uestions are all classical old chestnuts. They all have Greek names which you can learn (they are the ones in brackets) if it pleases you. Let's don't.
Oh all right then if you must. Do you have to?

Common sense questions

The last blog translated anakoinosis questions as “cuddling up”. Actually it means, “common”. Like in “the common touch”.

Which is why people who are in no way common love it.

Especially politicians.

“Does he want to be PM, really? It’s small issues he deals with. The big issues, he ducks and dives. He likes his protests;” (Conservative Home on Mr Corbyn)

 The first of 60 questins for Boris Johnson from the Labour Party:

1.   Do you still think that the way to deal with advice from a female colleague is  to “just pat her on the bottom and send her on her way”?
2.   Do you still think that children of single mothers are ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate?
3.   Do you still think unmarried women who have children should be pushed into “destitution on a Victorian scale”?
4.   Do you still think a man should “take control of his woman”?

Especially people with stuff to sell you. Do they love questions!

From the Political Betting site:

I'm A Celebrity 2019: Who is the favourite to do the first Bushtucker trial?

Who wouldn't love to watch Ian Wright get drenched in beetles?

Especially comedians.

Now for underhand – manipulative questions.(hyphorical ones that is).

Student demonstrators love them.

What do we want?
(Fill in the blanks here).
When do we want it?
Now!

Advertisers love questions:

They get everyone joining in – being manipulated!

This blog is spending a lot of time on questions. Why do you think that is?

Ducking the question.

Have you stopped beating your wife?
More to the point, have you stopped beating yours?

Answering a question with another question is a trick which politicians often use.

Mr Johnson lied about dying in a ditch, did he not?
Yes, but what about Jeremy Corbyn then?

Have you tidied your room up yet?
Mum, what's for lunch?

Teacher: Where is your coursework?
Pupil: I really like that brooch! Where did you get it?

Parliament was discussing a British surrender to Germany in 1941 after the fall of France:

You ask, what is our policy? I will say it is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny...
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory.

Winston Churchill said these words in the House and the die was cast.

But he still dodged the question, although he did mention that “We shall never surrender.”.

A Level Students only:
It is unhelpful to answer a question with a further question – and that is what the Greeks called it: anthypophora (anti-hypo-phora = against + underhand)
Next time someone does it to you, sit them down and quietly explain that you know all about anthypophoria and that it just has no effect on you! This works specially well in tutorials and even better at parties.

Subjection Questions.

“What are you?” shouted the sergeant in the soldier's face.
“I am a bloody scumbag, Sergeant.”

“Is this your car, Sir?”
 “Yes, it is.”
“Are you aware, Sir, that it appears to be parked on a double red line?”

In China, we can watch, on t.v., the smuggled footage of the way the Uighurs are treated. These Muslims are shut up in prison camps  re-education centres and made to repeat the answers to questions in Mandarin although they do not really speak the language. They are asked things like which nation they belong to, who is their leader, and whether they support the Communist government 

Everyone knows the answer which is expected...

The Church of England used to have a catechism which asks all sorts of questions.

It started like this:

What is your name?
Answer: N or M
Who gave you this name?
Answer: My Godfathers and Godmothers at my Baptism wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

And so on. 

All these questions are asked to make the person answering them feel inferior. They are - and are intended to be - an act of subjection. They are not asked for any other reason: both sides know the answer before the question is asked.

By repeating the answer, you submit.

And subjection questions need not necessarily be bad questions either.

People who want to improve you ask you all sorts of questions too. 

You do realise don't you that smoking will kill you by the time you reach the age of 40?
Are you sitting there and telling me that you drink a bottle of wine a week?
Did you realise that according to the latest research, obese people stand a 39.8% chance of emphysema?

In a court of law, the other side's lawyers will also ask submission questions. 

“Where were you on the night of the 26^th?” 

Everyone knows the answer and you have to reply with the truth.

Or else...

Schoolteachers love the subjection question to which both sides know the answer.

Have you actually done any homework at all?

As do parents.

“You are not telling the truth, are you Figgy?”
“No Mummy.”

Boundless questions

Kei, the hitherto unknown philosopher and theologian (aged 5), asked me, the old man who knew everything, a question:

How did God make the world?

He genuinely did not know. He also suspected that I did not know either. 

It was a cry into the darkness really.

Freddie (aged 4):

Why can't I see God?

Here are some other boundless questions:

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Are you lonesome tonight? 

(Elvis means: "Like me. Or are you out at a lively party?")

Tiger tiger burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Who knows? What indeed!

Lovers adore the aporia.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

How do you do what you do to me?

Can this be love?

Theologians love the aporia.

We must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God; whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. (Dietriech Bonhoeffer, Life Together)

Where was God when I needed him?

Philosophers love the aporia:

What is happiness? (Friedrich Nietzsche)

The problem is banging on. 

Most people bang on about climate change, feminism, their own particular political tribe, their own particular football team...

Why not use aphoria?

Here are just three examples of softening the statement into that killer question which actually involves the other people (hat tip – La Rochefoucauld)

Which of these three alternatives is better for the audience?

Evil has its heroes as well as good.

Doesn't evil have its heroes as well as good?

Changes or taste are as usual as changes of inclination are unusual.
Do you think that changes of taste are as usual as changes of inclination are unusual? 

Solemnity is a mystery of the body devised to conceal flaws of the mind.
I wonder if solemnity of the body has been devised simply to conceal flaws of the mind?

True eloquence, after all, consists of saying all that is required and only what is required.