Smart Start A La Carte

Welcome to Smart Start À La Carte. This is your à la carte path to linguistic excellence. Each edition includes an impressive array of ways to make an impression. Some are simple specific spoon-fed examples that you can slide into your daily dialog. Some are a description or definition of a pattern, concept or category of persuasive communication with an example, of course.

“When” | When you want a person to be in the moment you’re talking about, but only they know when that is, there’s not a more direct way linguistically to get them there. Push yourself to build “when” into your language more often.

Most people use “when” when they are asking a question, but the really suave use “when” when they don’t want to tell someone directly to think about something. Why? Resistance, that’s why. Any time you can get someone to come to their own conclusion, they’ll be more conducive to doing it.

e.g. “When you want a person to be in the moment…” Since I know the types of moments I want you to be thinking about and I don’t know when, specifically, those moments are for you, but I know you know, I use “when” to get you to go there on your own.

BTW, using “when,” also presupposes you have these situations, instead of asking you whether or not you have them. Some people, not you, of course, will say “no.” So “when” is also a great way to get a “yes” response by bypassing a possibility of “no.” Much more direct, isn’t it.

So, be direct in a non-direct way.

Greek Figure of Speech | hypophora: Is their a better way to inoculate? Perhaps, but that question presupposes that hypohora is in the the list of ways to inoculate.

I doubt you consciously know this is called hypophora, anthypophora, or inoculation when you say it naturally, but it works all the same.

Looking back through my posts, apparently I do this quite a bit. And, I’ll continue to, because it’s a great way to communicate conversationally, especially, when you can’t ask questions in realtime while reading my posts.

But, hey, I’m not the only one doing this. Whether you’re trying to argue effectively, or asking yourself, “Is losing weight wrong if I am doing it for the wrong reason?,” dealing with a difficult person/parent/student, or just wanting to control the direction of the conversation and control the frame of the conversation.

If you’re saying to yourself, “this is good stuff,” then I say go out and use it!

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