Thank You for Arguing (Revised and Updated)

by Jay Heinrichs

  While figures of speech mess around with words, figures of thought are logical or emotional tactics—ready-to-hand schemes for using logos or pathos on the fly. Most of the tools you see in other chapters—from conceding a point to revealing an attractive flaw—qualify as figures of thought.

  The rhetorical question is that sort of figure. Here’s another: if you ask a rhetorical question and then answer it, you employ the self-answering question. Protesters use it all the time. (“What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!”) So does the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.

  What makes a king out of a slave? Courage.

  Useful Figure

  METONYMY: Using a characteristic to describe the whole.

  Useful Figure

  SYNECDOCHE: Swapping one thing for a collection.

  What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage.

  What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?

  Meanings

  Not only are synecdoche and metonymy difficult to pronounce, they’re often hard to tell apart. Is calling an elderly person a “bluehair” a metonymy (the blue hair being a characteristic) or a synecdoche (the hair standing for the whole person)? I like to combine the two into what I call the “belonging trope.” Take something that belongs, and make it represent what it belongs to.

  What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage.

  What makes the Sphinx the Seventh Wonder? Courage.

  What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage.

  Tropes swap one image or concept for another. The word is a bit jargonistic, but we use tropes all the time. Metaphor is a trope—it makes one thing stand for another (“The moon is a balloon”). Irony is a trope as well, because it swaps the apparent meaning for the real one. Synecdoche swaps a thing for a collection of things (“White House”), or makes a representative stand for the whole group (“welfare mother”). Metonymy takes a characteristic of something and makes it stand for the whole (“Red,” for a red-haired person). You’ll see more tropes in Chapter 21.

  In short, figures of speech switch words around, figures of thought use argument mini-tactics, and tropes make a word stand for something different from its usual meaning. Rather than just name the tools, though, I prefer to show a few ways to coin figures in various real-life situations.

  Grab a Cliché and Twist

  If an opponent uses an idiom or cliché (the two are kissing cousins, to use a cliché-like idiom), you can win the heart of an intelligent audience by giving the expression a twist. Too many people avoid clichés like the plague, but they’re a great resource—they make the rhetorical world go round—but only if you transform them with your instant wit. You will find it easier than it looks. For instance, take your opponent’s cliché and stick on a surprise ending.

  SIGNIFICANT OTHER: I want to look like her. She looks as if she was poured into her bathing suit.

  YOU: Yes, and forgot to say “when.”

  I confess, I adapted that line (practically stole it) from P. G. Wodehouse. While I’m swiping, I will steal a superb line from Rose Macaulay.

  Meanings

  You might say all words are a kind of trope, in which we swap sounds or symbols for the things we’re talking about. That’s pretty much what Plato said. He saw our sense of reality as a kind of trope—a set of images that stand in for the real thing.

  FRIEND: It’s a great book for killing time.

  YOU: Sure, if you like it better dead.

  You don’t have to wait for a cliché in order to mess one up. Just bring one of your own.

  OSCAR WILDE: One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.

  Argument Tool

  THE CLICHÉ TWIST: Concede your opponent’s cliché and then mess it up deliberately.

  Well, sure, easy for Wilde, Macaulay, and Wodehouse—three of the wittiest people ever. But here’s a secret to make a cliché practically reinvent itself: take it literally.

  OPPONENT: Let’s not put the cart before the horse.

  YOU: No. We might try something faster.

  Or:

  OPPONENT: Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.

  YOU: You really think they’d try?

  Again, I borrowed that last one from P. G. Wodehouse, a master of the twisted cliché.

  Most clichés qualify as figures or tropes in their own right. Putting the cart before the horse, for instance, is a metaphor. If you forget the figure and just take the cliché at face value, you find yourself thinking about its weird logic.

  OPPONENT: Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

  YOU: No, let’s just pull the plug.

  That baby-and-bathwater thing is a pretty shocking cliché when you think about it. By responding to it literally, you agree with your opponent even while you contradict him. Nice jujitsu.

  Suppose your town proposes expensive new racquetball courts and hires an architect to design them. The plans show that the courts will cost double what the budget had predicted. The town council holds a meeting, and you find yourself debating against a racquetball fan.

  TRY THIS WHEN YOU’RE FEELING SNARKY

  Just think of appropriate clichés and then reverse them in your head to see if one makes sense. My batting average is about .200. Gossiping about a nasty acquaintance’s new trophy wife:

  ME: In this case the early worm got the bird.

  FRIEND: Surely she had some say in the matter.

  ME: Well, that mystifies me. I’d like to brain her pick.

  YOU: We don’t need racquetball. This town has other priorities.

  RACQUET GUY: But don’t eliminate the courts. We shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

  YOU: No, you’re right. Let’s just pull the plug.

  Most clichés are absurd when you take them literally, which gives you an excellent opportunity for wit.

  OPPONENT: The early bird catches the worm.

  YOU: It can have it.

  The Yoda Technique

  You can also transform a banal idiom by switching words around.

  OSCAR WILDE: Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

  That reminds me of the clever anonymous soul who used Thorstein Veblen’s theory of the leisure class to criticize the teaching load of a college faculty: “The leisure of the theory class.”

  But switching words around works with far more than clichés. One of the most effective devices can transform just about any kind of sentence. You saw it before: the mighty chiasmus. As I mentioned before, this is my favorite figure, partly because it sounds terrific, especially in a formal speech, but also because it does a useful bit of persuasion. The chiasmus presents a mirror image of a concept, rebutting the opponent’s point by playing it backward. Kennedy took a commonplace, “What’s the country done for me lately?” and reversed it for his chiasmus. His speech wouldn’t have been the same without it.

  WITHOUT THE CHIASMUS: Instead of seeking help from the government, you should volunteer for it.

  WITH THE CHIASMUS: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

  The chiasmus lets you turn your opponent’s argument upside down. Imagine you represent a corporation accused of playing fast and loose with tax breaks; one member of Congress has even claimed that your company cheats the government. You could make a figure-free defense.

  TRY THIS IN A PRESENTATION

  Business clichés offer many opportunities for a figure. To make your point, choose a cliché that opposes you, and then flip the cliché in a chiasmus: “Let’s not settle for swimming with the sharks. Let’s make the sharks want to swim with us.”

  YOU:
We’re being falsely accused in a grandstanding move so some prosecutors and bureaucrats can score some easy points.

  Or you could put it in a chiasmus.

  YOU: It’s not a question of whether we’re cheating the government. It’s whether the government is cheating us.

  As I wrote this, my son walked in looking unhappy. I helpfully made him even more miserable with a chiasmus.

  GEORGE: My friends never call me.

  ME: Do you ever call your friends?

  Of course he does. My response was foolish, but I couldn’t resist. Besides countering an argument, the chiasmus lets you change the meaning of a word. Just play the clause in reverse.

  KNUTE ROCKNE: When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

  This is hard to do spontaneously, but you could add some humor to your writing by, say, inserting a pun into a chiasmus. Suppose you give a surprise party for a friend who turns forty. The guy’s mother gives you some old photos, including one that shows your friend at age two, splashing in a wading pool, buck naked. (Or the now common “butt naked,” which is incorrect but makes more sense.) What phrase comes to mind that combines innocent nakedness with a birthday? Birthday suit! Is there a pun there? Why, yes, there is. “Suit” changes meaning when you turn it into a verb. So let’s make a card out of a chiasmus.

  Classic Hits

  THE FIGURE OF SPEECH DEFENSE: The man credited for inventing figures of speech was a Greek Sophist named Gorgias (GOR-gee-us, but I like to call him “Gorgeous”). He once made a pretend defense of Helen of Troy, the runaway bride whose face launched those thousand ships. Gorgias declared beautiful Helen innocent by reason of figures: smooth-talking Paris used them to “drug” her into running off with him, so she wasn’t responsible for her own actions. Which goes to show that even rhetoricians have their fantasies.

  FRONT OF CARD, WITH A RESPECTABLE RECENT PHOTO OF BOB: What kind of party suits Bob’s birthday?

  INSIDE CARD, WITH A PHOTO OF NAKED, TWO-YEAR-OLD BOB: The kind where he wears his birthday suit.

  Smaller type could say, “Come as you are to Bob’s surprise party.” I admit, the chiasmus is far from perfect. So is the card. Well, think you can do it better? Okay, but you’d better do it well.

  How Churchill Got Rhythm

  Useful Figure

  DIALYSIS: Offers a distinct choice: either we do this or we do that.

  When you’re in a serious argument, wit and banter will only take you so far. Then the figures you need the most will be the simplest figures of thought. The most common—and the ones used most by speechwriters—take two points and weigh them side by side. You’re either for us or you’re against us. Or as George W. Bush put it, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” The official name for this either/or figure is the dialysis, which succinctly weighs two arguments side by side. You’re either this or you’re that.

  PARENT: You can do your homework now and come to the movies, or do it later with a babysitter.

  A close relative is the antithesis. No figure does a better job of splitting the difference.

  BARACK OBAMA: The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity.

  Useful Figure

  ANTITHESIS: Weighs one argument next to the other.

  Notice how my examples tend to use repetition and parallel structure—phrases with the same rhythm—as if the speaker were weighing a couple of plums, one ripe, the other not. This pattern can clarify things at home or in the office.

  TRY THIS IN A FORMAL DEBATE

  In an organized argument or a large meeting, use jujitsu in combination with an antithesis by repeating your opponent’s expression and then changing its form. “The law wasn’t weak until your administration weakened it.” This actually produces another figure, called antistasis.

  PRESENTER: Our competition outsourced its call center, saved twenty percent, and lost ten percent of its customers; we kept things domestic, gained market share, and came out ahead.

  WOODY ALLEN: Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach gym.

  Each example does what too few people do in an argument: offer a quick summary that shows who stands in what corner. Side-by-side figures can be used for evil, though. Avoid them if you have more than two choices. That’s cheating (if you get caught, that is).

  Say Yes and No at the Same Time

  An antithesis is particularly effective when it makes you sound objective. You carefully weigh things side by side, look at the results, and come to a reasonable conclusion—or so the audience believes. Another way to achieve this rhetorical version of objectivity is to edit yourself aloud. Interrupt yourself, pretend you can’t think of what to say, or correct something in the middle of your own sentence. Bartender Moe does it in The Simpsons.

  Useful Figure

  CORRECTION FIGURE: Formal name: epergesis, meaning “explanation.”

  MOE: I’m better than dirt. Well, most kinds of dirt, not that fancy store-bought dirt…I can’t compete with that stuff.

  Actually, let’s not use Moe as an example. Instead, look at these two ways of berating a lover.

  (Without the correction figure) I’ve never been so embarrassed as I was watching you at the party last night.

  (With the correction figure) I never was so embarrassed as I was last night. Actually, I have been that embarrassed—the last time we went to a party together.

  Correcting yourself makes your audience believe you have a passion for fairness and accuracy even while you pile on the accusations. That particular example isn’t great for a relationship, but if you intend to condemn someone, at least do it eloquently.

  In an earlier chapter we talked about how to redefine an issue during an argument.

  DANIEL BOONE: I’ve never been lost but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.

  A great figure of thought for redefining an issue is a “no-yes” sentence.

  Useful Figure

  THE “NO-YES” SENTENCE: Formal name: dialysis. It repeats the opponent’s word with “no” after it, followed by a new, improved word.

  LOVER: You seem a little put out with me this morning.

  YOU: Put out, no. Furious, yes.

  The “no-yes” sentence offers you wonderful opportunities for irony. Change one word and your audience will think you have an endless supply of catty wit:

  FRIEND: He seems like a real straight shooter.

  YOU: Straight, no. Shooter, yes.

  Or:

  Persuasion Alert

  Yes, I’m being defensive about my cleverness. Writing is far from the best medium for teaching rhetoric; even Aristotle’s Rhetoric would go down easier if Aristotle was teaching it in a classroom (in English).

  COWORKER: She says they’re using a new system.

  YOU: New, yes. Systematic, no.

  Funny, no. Witty, yes, especially if it comes out spontaneously. Remember, things sound much more clever when you say them aloud than they do on paper.

  We Are Not Unamused

  TRY THIS IN A MEETING

  You usually hear “not exactly” at the beginning of a litotes, a tired usage that almost turns it into a cliché. Try “I don’t expect” or “I hope” instead. My wife and I went to the ballet, where a male dancer performed a staid minuet while two women spun and whirled around him. “I hope he doesn’t strain himself,” Dorothy said, a bit too loudly. It seemed to be the highlight of the evening for an alarming number of people.

  The antithesis and the correction figures lie mostly in logos territory. But some of the most effective figures of “thought” have to do with the emotions. You can use them to turn the volume up or down in an
argument. The litotes is one of the most popular for calming things down. It makes a point by denying its opposite; the result is an ironic understatement, and an appropriate answer to a stupid question. When reporters asked O. J. Simpson why he made an appearance at a horror comic book convention, he answered with a litotes.