Most logic and critical thinking textbooks will tell you that words have rhetorical force or emotive meaning. This means that words can be used to persuade people to believe different things. Rhetoric is the study of persuasive writing through a broad category of linguistic techniques, usually studied in both english and philosophy departments. Rhetoric is often asociated with politicians, standing at the podium, trying to convince you to support them (the poster to the right takes a cynical view on this matter).

Different phrases take on different meanings when worded in a certain way. The factual information is the same, but the way the phrase is worded can make the same factual information seem different. For example: “John is fighting hard for the rights of his organization.” “John is still uselessly fighting for his rights.” Obviously, one of these sentences is much more negative that the other, and yet both convey the idea that John is fighting for rights.

Rhetorical Devices (Slanters): these are rhetorical bells and whistles that are used to give certain claims a positive or negative slant. They are covered in the rest of the lecture.

Euphemism: when a neutral or positive expression is used to replace a more negative expression.

For example, the US Dept of Defense used to be called the Dept of War. Changing the word “war” to “defense” has a more positive impact, despite the fact that the Dept carries out the same sorts of operations, whatever its name.

Dysphemism: when a negative expression is used to make a more positive expression sound worse.

Calling a freedom fighter, or someone who rebels against their government, a “terrorist” is a dysphemism. In extreme cases (and usually by either the politically far left or far right) people who simply question the actions of their government are called terrorists.

A couple things to note: euphemisms and dysphemisms are sometimes necessary and sometimes certain events are just negative anyway. Saying “passed on” instead of “died” can minimize the psychological impact of a death of relatives. If someone murdered a victim and kept body parts in his fridge, then this is just a negative, terrible thing, it is not a dysphemism. It’s not trying to make something sound worse—it’s already bad.

Rhetorical definitions: a definition that uses emotionally charged language to get you to feel some way about something.

For example, defining abortion as “the murder of an unborn child.” Of course, you could also change your definition of human being, making it so an unborn child is not yet a human being.

Stereotyping: coming to conclusions about a people or group based on little or no evidence.

Most of us are familiar with racial stereotypes, but we often don’t think about the other ways we stereotype people. Conservatives often stereotype liberals and liberals often stereotype conservatives. As Moore and Parker point out, very intelligent people can give into stereotypes.

Sometimes people will tell you that certain stereotypes contain a degree of truth. Let’s think of a couple. “Asians are good at math.” “White men can’t dance.” Even if there are exceptions, are these statements generally true? I’ll let you be the judge…

Innuendo: getting a point across without committing oneself to it.

Innuendo allows you to say something about someone without actually saying it outright. Let’s say that you woke up in the morning to go to work, and your roommate was playing Nintendo Wii. You go to work and come home, and you see that your roommate is still playing Wii. So you say, “It looks like you got a lot done today.” You are being sarcastic, and using an innuendo. The idea is that your roommate did not do any work.

Loaded Questions: this is a form of innuendo that seems to demand only a yes or no answer, but actually requires more. In other words, a loaded question makes assumptions. “Are you ever going to do something with your life?” “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”

Weaselers: linguistic techniques that water down a claim so that the person making the claim can easily find a way out if challenged. In other words, claims that are very vague. Vague claims allow numerous interpretations.

For example, the phrase “Doctor recommended” means that only one doctor has recommended something! But the phrase makes it sound like many doctors recommend it.

Downplayers: words and devices that make someone or something seem less significant than it is.

For example: “Who cares what Marie has to say, she works for the government.” The implication is that working for the government disqualifies Marie’s opinion. The word “mere” is often used as a downplayer. “My GPA is 4.0 while Kenny has a mere 3.7.”

Let’s take the example used earlier of your roommate playing Nintendo. You might use air quotes to signify that your roommate was doing nothing all day. You might use air quotes and say, “Well, as you can see John was ‘working’ all day.” This is a downplayer.

Horse laugh/ridicule/sarcasm: this is basically ridiculing someone’s point by laughing at it, although its applications are sometimes more subtle.

For example: “You believe that the government is on your side? Really? Ha!” The point is that any claim that the person being laughed at might make is never addressed by the person laughing.

Often someone in a debate is a smooth talker who gets a laugh from the audience all the time, but this doesn’t mean he wins the debate.

As a grad student, I wrote my Master’s Thesis on virtual art. When I approached a certain professor with this idea, he basically said it was ridiculous. He was committing the horse laugh because he just laughed at the idea of my thesis topic without investigating rationally whether it was a good thing to write about. (As it turns out, many other professors thought it was a good idea, and I ended up writing my thesis on that topic.)

Hyperbole: this is basically an extravagant exaggeration.

To say you are deathly ill when you simply have a seasonal cold is an example of hyperbole. But, as Moore and Parker point out, not all colorful language is hyperbole. If I say that Jimi Hendrix was one of the most creative guitarists of all time, I’m not really exaggerating (though I am making a strong claim).

The key to hyperbole is that the language being used becomes excessive—and what is excessive and what isn’t is a matter of judgment. It’s pretty obvious that calling your Mom a dictator because she won’t let you hang out with your friends is hyperbole. But just calling her strict is not hyperbole.

Proof surrogates: an expression that suggests there is evidence or authority for a claim without actually citing any sources.

Often, proof surrogates will start with phrases like “authorities say” or “experts believe” or “studies show.”

The point is that proof surrogates are not actual support for a claim. There may be “reason to believe” some claim, but unless actual reasons are provided, we should think twice about accepting the claim.

Rhetorical analogy: a comparison of one thing to another in order to make one thing appear better or worse than it might actually be.

Rhetorical analogies can be colorful and funny, but they are no substitute for actual reasons for accepting some claim. One of the examples in the text comes from the writer Dave Barry who said: “Having kids is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.” This example shows that, in some cases, people are only making comparisons to be funny.

Moore and Parker recommend that you keep some things in mind when considering rhetorical analogies and misleading comparisons.

1. Make sure the relevant info is included. The example the text gives is the following. Someone says that 90 percent of heroin addicts once smoked marijuana. Without any other information, this basically says nothing. Is there a connection between those who smoked marijuana and those who are addicted to heroin? This comparison doesn’t tell us.
2. Is the same standard of comparison being used? Often the meaning of terms changes over time, as the example in the book points out, and this can cause any sort of comparison to break down.
3. Are the items comparable? Sometime things aren’t comparable at all, and yet people still compare them. Can we really compare the youth of our time in America with the youth from 1920s America? Aren’t these two completely different worlds? Can we find any standards that allow an objective comparison?
4. If the comparison involves an average, key details are often left out. Let’s say that someone says the average person living in La Jolla makes 20,000 dollars more per year than they did 5 years ago. This sounds good, but it doesn’t tell us about other factors, like economic downturns, inflation, other expenses that contribute to salary.

Unfortunately, words are not the only way that people will try to convince you of things disingenuously. Images can also be manipulated and altered in an attempt to persuade you of something the want you to believe. As the book points out, images taken even moments apart can convey different impressions.

It will be good to end here with the following words. While slanters and rhetorical devices are all over the place, there’s no reason to believe that every source of information with evidence of a slanter is not worth considering. Sometimes good writers who genuinely have true information to convey will use slanters to be colorful, but (and this is the key) they will also provide reasons and argument for what they believe.

The point is that slanters alone don’t show something to be false, and it’s up to you to use your critical thinking skills to decide what is good information and what isn’t, what to accept and what not to accept.

Warning: When slanters (and later fallacies) come up on quizzes, it will sometimes be difficult to choose which slanter you think fits the example given. This is perfectly natural! It will not always be clear, and in many cases there is more than one possible answer. What will get you the points is your ability to argue for the slanter you've chosen. In other words, you should ask yourself this question: what is the definition of the slanter I chose and in what way does it fit this example?