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Rhetorical Question?

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Rhetorical questions are those that don't expect an answer, right? But my dictionary doesn't give any definition of the sort under "rhetorical"--what gives? How are rhetorical questions related to rhetoric?


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Websters puts it this way:

employed for rhetorical effect, especially: asked merely for effect with no answer expected {a rhetorical question}

Rhetorical


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I seriously contemplated that word and definition when I was writing a dictionary. If someone asks you, "Is that a rhetorical question?" This implies that the one who posed the original statement didn't do a good job in their delivery.

The definition of 'rhetorical' is, basically, the art of speaking/writing effectively/persuasively. That implies that if someone posed a question persuasively there must be no room for an answer.

The art of rhetoric is that the sentence becomes a statement with a question mark. If artfully created...no one would respond with an answer.


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