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Rhetorical question

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A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer. ("How many times do I have to tell you to stop walking into the house with mud on your shoes?").

A rhetorical question seeks to encourage reflection within the listener as to what the answer to the question (at least, the answer implied by the questioner) must be. When a speaker declaims, "How much longer must our people endure this injustice?" or "Will our company grow or shrink?", no formal answer is expected. Rather, it is a device used by the speaker to assert or deny something.

Examples

  • "How can people have hope when we tell them that they have no recourse, if they run afoul of the state justice system?" Edward Kennedy, Senate debate on the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, 1968.
  • "Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
    When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
    Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
    Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
    And Brutus is an honourable man.
    You all did see that on the Lupercal
    I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
    Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?" William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 2.

Some rhetorical questions become idiomatic English expressions:

  • "What's the matter with you?"
  • "Don't you know any better?"
  • "Have you no shame?"
  • "Is the Pope Catholic?" and "Does a bear shit in the woods?"
  • "Do fish swim?"
  • "Are you crazy?"
  • "Who cares?"
  • "How should I know?"
  • "Are you kidding me?"
  • "Do you expect me to do it for you?"
  • "Do pigs fly?"
  • "What are you gay?"

A rhetorical question typically ends in a question mark (?), but occasionally may end with an exclamation mark (!) or even a period (.) according to some writing style guides. For example:

  • "What's the point of going on."
  • "Isn't that ironic!"

As with much of other American slang, these commonly used phrases may be sometimes confusing to people who may be fluent in English but unfamiliar with the localized meaning. For example, an American English speaker may be likewise befuddled if asked "Are you coming the raw prawn?" which in Australian English is used to mean "Are you kidding me?".

Occasionally, non-native speakers may thoroughly confuse some of these phrases and mangle them in various ways such as asking "Does the Pope shit in the woods?" which is humorous to a native speaker but puzzling and embarrassing to themselves.

Some TV shows have had rhetorical questions as titles, such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" contains a series of rhetorical questions. This is spoofed in an episode of The Simpsons, in which Homer attempts to quantitatively answer "How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?"

On the BBC comedy quiz show QI, host Stephen Fry once asked panellist Alan Davies, "Is this a rhetorical question?" to which Davies correctly answered "No".

See also

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