Word Play: Rhetorical questions

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday August 19th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Well, today being the third week of the month, is it not the day for Word Play?

Of course it is. That was a purely rhetorical question. Here is George Grant.

GEORGE GRANT, COMMENTATOR: A rhetorical question is a statement formulated as a question where no response is required or expected. It is a question asked to make a point rather than to get an answer. It is a question asked for emphasis or effect.

Sometimes the intended effect of a rhetorical question is heightened obviousness or exaggerated emphasis as in, “What were you thinking?” Or, “What part of no do you not understand?” Or, “Wow! Who knew?” Or, “Do pigs fly?” Or, “Why me? Or, “Who cares?”

Sometimes the intended effect of a rhetorical question is wry humor or sardonic irony as in, “What is another name for thesaurus?” Or, “Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?” Or, “Why isn’t phonetic spelled the same way it sounds?” Or, Shouldn’t there be shorter words for abbreviation and monosyllabic?” Or, “How did the fool and his money ever get together in the first place?”

Rhetorical questions are common devices in classic literature. “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Shelley concludes with the rhetorical question, “O Wind, if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” In his poem “The Solitary Reaper,” William Wordsworth poses the rhetorical question, “Will no one tell me what she sings?”

William Shakespeare often used rhetorical questions to good effect. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” he asked in “Sonnet 18.” Juliette sighed to Romeo, “Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Hamlet’s great soliloquy is a string of rhetorical questions, “To be, or not to be, that is the question–whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.” In The Merchant of Venice Shylock asks “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

The Apostle Paul frequently used rhetorical questions to drive home the essential truths of the Gospel: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). “He did not spare His own Son but offered Him up for us all. How will he not also graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32). “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (Romans 8:35).

Then, there are the uses of rhetorical questions in contemporary pop culture: in a TV episode of the Simpsons, Lisa Simpson sang Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” came to the line, “How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?” Homer overheard and answered, “Eight!” To which Lisa harrumphs, “That was a rhetorical question!” “Oh,” Homer responded, “Then, seven!” Rolling her eyes, Lisa asked, “Do you even know what rhetorical means?” To which Homer asserted, “Do I know what rhetorical means?”

When I told a friend that I wanted to do a whole Word Play episode on rhetorical questions, he responded, “Are you kidding me?”

I’m George Grant.

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