Chapter 05 Rhetoric, the Art of Persuasion Answer Key
Essay Questions
1.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Not everyone thinks that [former] Senator Jesse Helms is the least admired American
public figure (as some opinion polls show). Even now, one or two southern Republicans
lust after a Helms endorsement.
“Not everyone” implies that most do—innuendo. The parenthetical remark is a proof
surrogate. “Even now” insinuates (innuendo) that by this time hardly anyone has regard for
Helms or for a Helms endorsement. “One or two” is a weaseler. “Lust after” belittles the
desire for a Helms endorsement: it cheapens both Helms and those who want his support.
2.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
From a letter to the editor: “In Sacramento, money talks, which is why our politicians
kowtow to the local developers. So much for voting for honest people whose primary
concern should be people, not money.”
—Sacramento Bee
“Kowtow,” though its original touch-the-forehead-to-the-ground meaning is fading among
all except those who read novels about the nineteenth century, still carries the sense of
obsequious deference that brings it close to hyperbole here. The whole tone of the last
sentence is slanted; it insinuates both that politicians are dishonest and that their primary
concern is money (innuendo, and not very subtle).
3.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Perhaps the “religious leaders” who testified at the state board of education’s public
hearing on textbooks think they speak for all Christians, but they do not.
Note especially how quotation marks around “religious leaders” serves to question the
credentials of those individuals.
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4.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
The United States will not have an effective antiterrorist force until the army and the air
force quit bickering about equipment and responsibilities.
“Bickering” belittles the nature of the controversy.
5.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Maybe it’s possible, after all, to sympathize with the Internal Revenue Service. The woes
that have piled up in its Philadelphia office make the IRS look almost human.
“After all” suggests that the IRS usually deserves no sympathy; “almost human” implies
that the IRS is actually inhuman.
6.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
We clearly can’t trust the television networks, not when they’ve just spent two days
interviewing young children on their feelings about the recent shootings at the elementary
school. This attempt to wring every drop of human interest from the tragedy is either
frighteningly cynical or criminally thoughtless regarding the damage that can be done both
to the children interviewed and to children who see the interviews.
“We clearly can’t” acts as a potential proof surrogate. “Wring every drop” is an
exaggeration; the adverbs “frighteningly” and “criminally” approach hyperbole, especially
the latter.
7.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
The antigun people think that just as soon as guns are outlawed, crime will disappear, and
we’ll all live together as one big, happy family.
This trades on a stereotype; it’s an excellent opening for a straw man.
8.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Sam Goldwyn once said that an oral agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. We
wonder what he would have said about the Pennzoil-Texaco case.”
—The Worcester, Mass.,
Evening Gazette
(Background: In 1985, Pennzoil offered to buy out Getty Oil Co. for $5.3 billion. Although
both parties agreed to the deal and press announcements were issued, Getty abruptly
backed out when Texaco offered $10 billion for Getty. Getty accepted the Texaco offer,
and Pennzoil sued for $14 billion in damages.) This is a rhetorical comparison, of course.
9.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Handguns are made only for the purpose of killing people.
This could be called stereotyping—in this case, an oversimplified generalization about a
class of things instead of people.
10.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Would you want to appoint my opponent as president of your company?”
—The late Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, speaking to a group of Philippine
businessmen about his 1986 election opponent, Corazon Aquino
Innuendo based on a form of rhetorical comparison.
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McGraw-Hill Education.
11.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Early in the third phase of the Vietnam War, the U.S. command recognized that the term
‘search and destroy’ had unfortunately become associated with ‘aimless searches in the
jungle and the destruction of property.’ In April 1968, General Westmoreland therefore
directed that the use of the term be discontinued. Thereafter, operations were defined and
discussed in basic military terms which described the type of operation, for example,
reconnaissance in force.”
—Lieutenant General John H. Hay, Jr.,
Vietnam Studies
Euphemism.
12.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Robert may be a pretty good gardener, all right, but you’ll notice he lost nearly everything
to the bugs this year.
Innuendo and downplayer (“but“).
13.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“The Soviet regime [once] promulgated a law providing fines for motorists who alter their
lights or grills or otherwise make their cars distinguishable. A regime that makes it a crime
to personalize a car is apt to make it a crime to transmit a cultural heritage.”
—George Will
Rhetorical comparison.
14.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Jimmy Fallon? Yeah, he’s about as funny as a terminal illness.
Rhetorical comparison.
15.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“To Chico’s wholesalers and retailers of pornography: do you honestly believe that
pornography has no effect on the behavior of people?”
—From an ad in the
Chico Enterprise-Record
The phrase “do you honestly believe” is almost always used to refute without argument
the claim that follows it. It isn’t a type of slanter discussed in the text, though you might
get away with calling it a proof surrogate.
16.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Within the context of total ignorance, you are absolutely correct.”
—Caption in a
National Review
cartoon
This is the height of downplaying, as it were; although the remark is clearly designed more
to amuse than to persuade.
17.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“If we stop the shuttle program now, there are seven astronauts who will have died for
nothing.”
—An unidentified U.S. congressman, after the space shuttle disaster of January 1986
This statement uses hyperbole to exaggerate the situation.
18.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
It is, of course,
conceivable
that the Qaddafi regime has nothing to do with terrorist
attacks on Israeli airports, but…
The downplaying “but” makes it almost certain that “conceivable” is functioning here as a
weaseler.
19.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
If the governor is so dedicated to civil rights, why is it that the black citizens of this state
are worse off now than when he took office?
Loaded question.
20.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Chewing tobacco is not only messy but also unhealthy (just check the latest statistics).
The parenthetical addition is a proof surrogate.
21.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Once you’ve made our Day Planner a part of your business life, there’s a good chance
you’ll never miss or be late for another appointment.
“There’s a good chance” is a weaseler.
22.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“… despite the idealist yearnings in the body politic that this [the baby boom] generation
supposedly epitomizes, the darker side of the lust for power is still present. Just witness
the saga of the collapse of the once-promising career of Mayor Roger Hedgecock [former
mayor of San Diego].”
—Larry Remer and Gregory Dennis
The passage insinuates an almost obsessive desire for power on the part of Hedgecock.
23.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“If it ain’t country, it ain’t music.”
—Bumper sticker
Another hyperbolic false dilemma (false dilemma is discussed in Chapter 6).
24.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Professor Jones, who normally confines his remarks to his own subject, ventured out on a
high wire to comment on the commission’s findings.
Jones’s credentials regarding evaluation of the commission’s findings are impugned
(innuendo), and the significance of his comments is downplayed.
25.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
I simply won’t go into those cowboy bars; they’re full of guys who disguise their
insecurities with cowboy boots and hats.
Stereotyping.
26.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Can [former Representative Jack] Kemp or anyone believe that $27 million in
‘humanitarian’ aid would replace all that South Africa has done [to support Angolan
rebels]?”
—Anthony Lewis,
New York Times
(Kemp sponsored a bill that gave $27 million in humanitarian aid to Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA
rebels for their fight against the government of Angola.) “Can anyone believe” suggests
that the Kemp proposal is not to be taken seriously and is perhaps not taken seriously
even by Kemp himself. The quotation marks around “humanitarian” serve to question
whether the aid would be genuinely humanitarian.
27.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Notre Dame people like to point out that, unlike other [college football] powerhouses,
their players must face tough admissions standards, shoulder the regular course load, and
forget about being red-shirted to gain additional playing years. And, of course, it’s a lot
more fun to point out those things if your guys are out there stomping on 24-year-old golf–
course management majors every Saturday, the way they used to.”
—Newsweek
Hyperbole; we expect there are football players for other teams who don’t major in golf-
course management and who are under twenty-four.
28.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Trivial pursuit” is the name of a game played by the California Supreme Court, which will
seek any nit-picking excuse preventing murderers from receiving justice.
Rhetorical definition. Notice the switch in this one: Usually the slant is against the word or
idea being defined; here the object of the attack occurs in the definition.
29.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Any person who thinks that Libya is not involved in terrorism has the same kind of
mentality as people who think that Hitler was not involved in persecuting Jews.”
—Robert Oakley, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism, in an interview on
National Public Radio’s
All Things Considered
Rhetorical comparison.
30.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Although you were not selected to receive the award, I congratulate you for your
achievements at California State University, Chico.”
—Excerpt from a letter written by a university president and sent to an unsuccessful
contender for a campus award.
Downplayer: “although.”
31.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels… justified the attack on thousands of Jews as a
step toward removing an ‘infection’ contaminating Germany. ‘It is impossible that, in a
National Socialist state, which is anti-Jewish in its outlook, those streets should continue
to be occupied by Jewish shops.'”
—Reuters report in the
Sacramento Bee
Stereotype and rhetorical comparison.
32.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Voting is the method for obtaining legal power to coerce others.
—From a commentary on a grocery bag urging citizens not to vote and thus not to
encourage the majority to take away the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the
minority.
Rhetorical definition.
33.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“To those who say that the analogy of Hitler is extremist and inflammatory in reference to
abortion, I would contend that the comparison is legitimate…. The Supreme Court, by
refusing to acknowledge their personhood, has relegated the entire class of unborn
children to a subhuman legal status without protection under the law—the same accorded
to Jews under the Third Reich.”
—Jerry Nims, writing in the Moral Majority’s Liberty Report
Rhetorical comparison.
34.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“Who is to blame for this lackluster political campaign?”
—Television network anchor
Loaded question.
35.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
To study the epidemiology of deaths involving firearms kept in the home, we reviewed all
the gunshot deaths that occurred in King County, Washington (population 1,270,000), from
1998 through 2003…. A total of 743 firearm-related deaths occurred during this six-year
period, 398 of which (54%) occurred in the residence where the firearm was kept. Only 2 of
these 398 deaths (0.5%) involved an intruder shot during attempted entry. Seven persons
(1.8%) were killed in self-defense. For every case of self-protection homicide involving a
firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides….
Handguns were used in 70.5% of these deaths.
We find this almost entirely free of slanters. “Only,” in the fourth sentence from the end,
downplays the number of intruders shot, but then it is a small number that’s being
downplayed.
36.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Libya’s strongman Colonel Muammar Qaddafi is the kingpin of Mideast terrorism, as
Israeli and Western intelligence sources assert. Qaddafi’s “who, me?” denials are as
believable as would be his announcing conversion to Judaism.
Both “strongman” and “kingpin” are slanters, and the second sentence is a rhetorical
comparison.
37.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
A political endorsement by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, the high priest of holier-than-thou
and “let’s hear it for apartheid,” would help a political candidate as much as an
endorsement from the Ayatollah Khomeini.
“Holier-than-thou” is a clichéd slanter; and the “let’s hear it for apartheid” epithet is a jeer,
regardless of the fact that Falwell supported apartheid in South Africa. The whole is, of
course, a rhetorical comparison.
38.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
“The people who [fought] the Soviet-backed government in Nicaragua [were] freedom
fighters, just as George Washington was in our country.”
—Ronald Reagan
Rhetorical comparison.
39.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
As if they alone were concerned with clean air and pure water, these self-anointed
environmentalists question whether there will be nitrate pollution from the new
subdivision and whether Madrone Creek can accommodate storm runoff from the
development. Their no-growth ideas are familiar to everyone in the community.
“As if they alone were concerned” insinuates both that others are concerned and a
smugness on the part of the people in question. “Self-anointed” is a standard slanter;
nearly anybody who takes up a cause is self-anointed, in a manner of speaking. “No-
growth ideas” is probably exaggeration, although probably not hyperbole, and downplay. If
this entire passage were rewritten in neutral language, you couldn’t tell which side of the
issue the author was on.
40.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Surely you can’t say that the American people have ever been behind Bill Clinton. After all,
he got a mere 43 million votes in 1992, which is five million fewer than what George Bush
got when he beat Dukakis in 1988.
“Mere” is a downplayer.
41.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
In March 1997, thirty-nine members of the so-called Heaven’s Gate cult committed suicide
in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The event was connected with the Hale-Bopp comet,
which was at that time making its brightest appearance to observers on earth. The cultists
believed a spaceship following the comet would “take them away” from earthly matters,
provided they had undergone sufficient “spiritual metamorphosis.”
“So-called” is a downplayer, used sarcastically here. “Take them away” and “spiritual
metamorphosis” may simply be direct quotations from remarks made by the cultists, but
they may also be sarcastically intended, in which case they are downplayers.
42.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Soon after the mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California, Ted Turner—owner of the
Atlanta Braves and vice chairman of Time Warner—said that he thought the suicides were
“a nice way to get rid of a few nuts.”
The sentiment expressed is certainly negative here, but, except for the name-calling
“nuts,” which would have to be characterized as a dysphemism in our system, we don’t
find the language slanted.
43.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
All that effort spent giving Kuwait back to the Kuwaitis was like taking a crime syndicate
away from one Mafia boss and handing it to another. The Kuwaitis already own half the
civilized world, and we’ve put them back in the driver’s seat. Their so-called “justice”
system is handing out cruel punishments to alleged collaborators, many of whom were
simply trying to stay alive during the Iraqi occupation.
In our view, the first sentence is a rhetorical comparison; the remark about owning half the
civilized world is hyperbole; “so-called” is a downplayer of sorts—the quotation marks
around “justice” serve the same purpose of letting the reader know the word is not
intended to be taken literally. The last part of that sentence is interesting: one way of
staying alive, of course, was collaboration; shouldn’t the real question be whether it was
coerced or volunteered?
44.
Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
With her keen instinct for political survival on full alert, Governor Whitman suddenly saw
the wisdom of the proposal that she had opposed for so many years.
Innuendo—insinuates that her changed mind on the proposal was politically motivated
and unprincipled.