Rhetorical evasion--gaps between speaker, audience, and message

I was watching That 70’s Show reruns on TV when the following scene caught my attention because of Kitty’s use of rhetorical skill. I think the scene exhibits how language can be used to obscure one’s meaning and intentions and also the gap between message and audience. In this scene, it is Hyde’s 18^th birthday, and he does not want a party. His parents have not been in his life, so he hates birthdays for what they represent about family. I have copied the script from a website (I’m not sure how accurate it is, but it seems to match what I tried to furiously scribble down) and pasted it here. The link is: http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/that70sshow/season4/that70sshow-423.htm

INT. FORMAN KITCHEN - NIGHT (DAY 1)

(Hyde, Red, Kitty)

KITTY BAKES. FROSTED CUPCAKES COVER THE ENTIRE

KITCHEN TABLE. RED READS HIS PAPER. HYDE ENTERS.

HE SPOTS THE CUPCAKES AND HOLDS ONE UP.

KITTY

(STARTLED) Steven! I thought

you were at work.

HYDE

Not 'til later. (SUSPICIOUS)

Why are you baking so many

cupcakes?

KITTY

I had four dozen eggs, they were

gonna go bad.

HYDE

Mrs. Forman, I really don't want

a party. And I'm not saying

that because I'm fishing for a

party, I mean I really don't

want one.

KITTY

Uh-huh

HYDE

'Cuz I know how this family

works. You guys say you don't

want stuff you actually want.

Like on Mother's Day, whey you

said you didn't want a fuss, but

you did want a fuss? So we made

a fuss, and you were happy?

That can drive a guy nuts.

RED

(LOWERS PAPER) It really can.

KITTY

I didn't want a fuss.

HYDE/RED

Yes you did!

HYDE

So now I don't know exactly what

to do, or say, or not say, 'cuz

I don't want a party.

KITTY

Well I don't want to do anything

you don't want.

HYDE

(FRUSTRATED) See, I don't know

what that means!

KITTY

It means there's no party.

HYDE EYES HER DOUBTFULLY

KITTY (CONT'D)

Oh please! Would I lie about

making you a party? I'm hurt.

HYDE

Fine. Okay. Sorry.

RED

You lied.

KITTY

No, no. I said, "Would I lie?"

It was very tricky. I was like

Houdini, but with words.

The first part of the scene is an example of the way people say one thing but mean or imply another. For example, Kitty says she did not want a fuss for mother’s day, but she really did. This predicament of speech has definite rhetorical import. Knowing this can help one portray or express one’s message in the most advantageous way. It also creates considerable room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation. The gaps between speaker, audience, and message also allow one to express a meaning without being explicit, which is helpful when avoiding social taboos and distasteful subjects. The gaps can also allow one to evade prosecution or punishment for certain activities because one can always say either “I didn’t mean it that way” or “I didn’t actually say that”. In this scene, Kitty is radiant as she explains to Red that she didn’t actually lie because of the way she worded her response to Hyde’s concerns about her throwing him a party. I think her last statement encompasses a large portion of what rhetoric is; it’s being “like Houdini, but with words.”

Weight Watching the way I Write

So, on this endless post-grad job search I've been on, I've come across some interesting things on the editorial side of magazine publishing.

First, I found a job listing for Weight Watchers, which I am a member of. As we learned a couple of weeks ago, WW is heavily immersed in Plato's objective to "help me use the weight loss plan that has worked for millions."

And while I've honestly been slacking in the weight loss department for a while, my job search has continued to be constant; almost obsessive. After hours of sifting through job ads, I found that Weight Watchers Magazine was looking for an intern for their offices in New York.

Since I'm a member and familiar with the program, I clicked on the entry to read the job description. It was mostly the standard description of duties I had been used to seeing for all the others such as: must be proficient in AP style, must pitch story ideas and work closely with the editor, must have a strong writing background with communication skills, etc.

But one job description that struck me was, "must be a self-starter with an ability to write impeccably on deadline."

Let's think about this for a second. First off, what does, "write impeccably" even mean? What i consider as impeccable writing may not be what WW considers as impeccable, so, what scale should we measure this definition on? It technically means, "behavior, performance, or appearance to the highest standards of propriety; faultless." But who gets to decide what the "highest standard" is? And no one writes faultless upon the first draft.

And second, why is our culture so oriented towards deadlines? Is it because we know at the end of that final crunch before time runs out, we have to turn in something as they would say, "impeccable" and that's where our inspiration comes from? Or are we just that lazy that if no deadlines existed, we would never be motivated enough to get through the writing?

I wonder what Peter Elbow would say about these requirements. Because like him, I wish I could find a job where I could write in a style and time frame that worked for me and not just by any magazine's rules and standards. Where do our rules and standards as writers come into play here?

Oh well, if following their specific writing rules gets me a job, that's exactly what I'll do!

Say It Aint So, Tiger! Or Perhaps, Say It Like Cicero...

Ok, so, I’m late. I know the whole world already knows that, well, to put it nicely, Tiger Woods is a dog. I guess I just wanted to bask in my ignorance and believe that he was as great a father and husband as he was a golfer. And while his golfing and fathering skills may have not diminished, he sure had some ‘splaining to do to his wife Elin, for the many, ahem, sexual partners he cheated on her with over the years.

Like I said, I know I’m a little late, but, I just recently read the public apology he made in February, and boy did he borrow from the book of Cicero! He opened his speech with a little licentia, or “frankness of speech,” saying, “I want to say to each of you simply and directly: I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible, selfish behavior.”

He then went into commoratio, or, “dwelling on the point” by explaining, “I know people want to find out how I could be so selfish and so foolish. People want to know how I could have done these things to my wife Elin and to my children. And while I have always tried to be a private person, there are some things I want to say.” After this, he placed “emphasis” or significatio, on his current relationship with his wife, saying, “Elin and I have started the process of discussing the damage caused by my behavior. My real apology will not come in the form of words, but my behavior over time. We have a lot to discuss. What we say to each other will remain between the two of us.”

He then makes the bold, “mock surrender” or, permissio, telling his mother and the press, “I had a lot of time to think of what I have done. My failures have made me look at myself in a way I never wanted to before. I have a lot to atone for.”

But he comes back with definitio, or defining his actions, by saying, “The issue involved here was my repeated irresponsible behavior. I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did is not acceptable – and I am the only person to blame. I stopped living by the core values that I was taught to believe in. I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn’t apply. Instead, I thought only about myself. I ran straight through the boundaries a married couple should live by. I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me.”

Finally, he “refines his idea” with expolitio and tells his fans and supporters his plan of action to return to their good graces, “I recognize I have brought this on myself. And I know above all, I am the one who needs to change. I owe it to my family to become a better person.”

Good luck, Tiger.

Learning the Ropes

Well, Rebekah beat me to it - perfect timing on this post! Since today’s class discussion and Perry’s study have given us a new vocabulary to hash this out, I’d like to blend a response and some thoughts of my own here (bear with me). Let’s take a look at the other side of this issue:
We know that writing, like painting or playing a musical instrument, is a complex act – there’s more happening than what meets the eye when a pen crawls across a page or fingers hammer s keyboard. Like art or musicianship, the process of learning to write is also complex. It involves (at least) two important elements- skill and creativity. I think looking at the relationship between these two might help explain why we’re taught in ways that, looking back, seem silly or useless.
The creative side of any discipline is deeply personal, and is grounded in the passion and experience of the artist. To realize one’s creative potential, however, one needs to have the core skills that make it possible. Building up these skills is a process that involves time, effort, and learning from mistakes. We learned from Piaget and Perry that development occurs in stages. At each successive stage, we are capable of understanding more.
Young writers are taught simplistically, and in black-and-white terms, because to do otherwise would be to confuse them needlessly – as anyone currently studying a foreign language knows, learning a general rule and then gradually becoming familiar with exceptions is much easier than simply being told that there is no rule. College students may be able to cope with the latter method, but for young writers with highly limited proficiency, this kind of teaching would be paralyzing. Someone who hasn’t mastered the construction of a coherent argument (most easily explained in that dreaded 5 paragraph theme) isn’t ready for a stage 3 Perryite freakout.



Picasso painted simple portraits before rocking the world with Cubism. Bird played standards before he showed us what it means to improvise. Writers learn the rules – the basics – so they can do the same, well, later on. Whether or not these skills are always taught effectively is another question entirely. Maybe we could do a study of our own to find out, and get Harvard to foot the bill.

Breakin' da Rules

As we’ve been talking about our early writing and how we learned to write, I’ve been thinking about all of the so-called rules I, and I’m guess most of you, were taught in elementary, junior high, and high school. These are the rules that we were taught never to break, such as never start a sentence with and, but, or it, don’t use I when writing essays or research papers, make sure that all paragraphs are five sentences or more, and, of course, never split an infinitive. Certain words, such as fun and nice were “garbage can words,” and when talking about an author you are to use the present tense. As I grew up, though, I began to learn exceptions to these rules. Sometimes a paragraph can be two or three sentences. There are quite a few times when splitting an infinite is ok. And it’s not a capital offense to begin a sentence with and. I still find myself stumbling over these “rules,” though, even when I’ve re-learned them time and time again. I’m weary about using I in formal writing, and I cringe at the thought of using garbage can words (a good reason to keep my thesaurus handy).
My question is why? Why were we taught all of these rules and regulations when we were just starting to write if we were only to disregard them later on? The amount of exceptions to these rules pretty much nullifies them in the first place. I suppose that concrete rules help young writers formulate skills, but I find that many people I talk to who struggle with writing are struggling with these very rules. Do these, guidelines, we might call them, still serve a viable function in today’s elementary school teachers’ lesson plans? Or should we crape them and teach kids the truth from the beginning. Or maybe it all comes back to the old saying that rules were meant to be broken. No matter what the answer, I still can’t help feeling like someone, somewhere down the line, lied to me.