It's All About The Wordplay

Why would Capote narrate so thoroughly and give so many details in a chapter titled "The Last Who Saw Them Alive?" Exactly because they were the last people who saw those six who we know will die, before they do. The long sentences, syntax, and specific descriptions, the way the author writes, supports what Capote is showing.

The word choice is also specific. The words he uses and order in which he places them makes me consider his sentences different from how most people today speak. I question myself whether it is a certain accent from Ohio, the sentence construction from 1966, or just Capote's style. Some of the words he included that I didn't understand were:

Austere: strict or severe appearance

Gewgaws: worthless, showy things

Mongrel: dog without a particular breed

These I wrote down without research because I remember from my job as a Lexicologist. I'll just give myself a pat on the back.

Tidings: announcements

Hued: color or shade

Keening: wail in grief for a dead person

Scuttling: Run hurriedly or furtively with short quick steps

I actually think these last two words sound mysterious... somebody keening means somebody has died and any person scuttling could be a suspect... hmm.

Lastly and severely out of topic, I found a reference to Gulliver's Travels, which I remember from the multiple choice test I took last week, on page 26: "Presently, more calmly, Mrs. Clutter asked, "Do you like miniature things? Tiny things? " and invited JOlene into the dining room to inspect the shelves of whatnot on which were arranged assorted Lilliputian gewgaws..."

Last thing, I promise. It's funny that Mrs. Clutter, who is a wreck of a person and owns a collection of mismatched things, has a last name that is defined as "a collection of things lying around in an untidy mess." It's all about the wordplay.

In Capote Blood

In Cold Blood. Even before I began discussing the book I already expected murder to be part of it. Surprisingly, I had read the first excerpt and never suspected murder to be part of it! The whole text is cause and effect, but so are small pieces of it. Hard to believe the book is the result of combining various essays, all of them following the pattern of cause and effect. For example, it took Capote eight pages to introduce the first person who will die. Six to go!

This is a clear example of the author's style. He could just have said, Herbert Clutter is one of the six people who will die, but no, his style is much more complicated (or elaborate) than that.

As soon as Capote introduces the five hunters from Ohio, he talks about Clutter dying. I'm sure their mysterious appearance is relevant. I'm also sure Capote has nerve. Nowadays, I'd think twice or even three times, before allowing strangers into my land (or home). Crazy people back then. Sincerely, I like how trust was gained. Today one can't even trust siblings.

Indian Independence Part 3

Amazingly enough, all three speeches were related to Indian independence from Britain and the many points of view on this topic. This is a text that informs and up to where I have read, doesn't contain many arguements, giving little space for there to be rhetoric. 

Nothing will turn us from our path, or discourage us from our efforts.  

This is a clear example of tautology, isn't Churchill just rephrasing what he said? As I read on I found another example. This time it was the many questions fallacy.  

Can you wonder that they try in desperation to make what terms are possible with the triumphant Brahmin oligarchy?  

 Now, with this excerpt I'm not 100% sure but it seems like a many questions fallacy:

If that authority is injured or destroyed, the whole efficiency of the services, defensive, administrative, medical, hygienic, judicial; railway, irrigation, public works and famine prevention, upon which the Indian masses depend for their culture and progress, will perish with it.  

I kind of ran out of fallacies in this speech, but I did want to inform you about my findings in terms of rhetoric. This text clearly uses logos and pathos. In an attempt to appear sympathetic, Churchill introduces the British as fair and who try to help the oppresed Hindi, which, after reading George Orwell's essay, we now know isn't true. Word choice is strong. Churchill uses words such as "despise" when he refers to the way Brahim feel about the Intouchables. You would support the group that despised nobody wouldn't you? So would I. 

Following that I found more ethos and logos!  

Were we to wash our hands of all responsibility and divest ourselves of all our powers, as our sentimentalists desire, ferocious civil wars would speedily break out between the Moslems and the Hindus. 

No one who knows India will dispute this.

I'ma fall asleep alert! Buh - bye, over and out.

How To Beat Rhetoric

Let's see how Mr. George Orwell manages rhetoric. I hope he has less fallacies than Gandhi! Perhaps he had a better introduction than Gandhi. After reading a whole paragraph I found the first one:

"I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East."

Hasty generalization right here! Just because the silence was imposed on him doesn't mean it was imposed on every Englishman in the East.

"Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty."

This is an example of reductio ad absurdum because obviously an Anglo-Indian official will take a break sometime. Wow, this one is harder! I bet it's because this is an expository text. 

A little out of the topic, in Deb Unferth's revolution I used the word garish and now remember it means showy. By the way, as I read the following fragment I almost cried with sympathy:

"But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have."

Back to fallacies. Or maybe not yet (or not ever)

"When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick — one never does when a shot goes home — but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time — it might have been five seconds, I dare say — he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay."

What an accurate title. As I read this and pictured it in my mind I must accept I did shed a tear. The advantages of reading and imagery.

THE END

I reached this pair of words and am sorry to say I failed. Just as that man failed to kill the elephant  without agony, it pains me to accept the world of rhetoric beat me once more. 2 - 0 and more will come.

Fallacy City by Gandhi

We all know who Gandhi is. That frail man who made India's revolution a peaceful one. It's amazing how uneducated people (in terms of rhetoric) fall blindly into a black hole of false logic. His speech has too many fallacies to be undetected.

Hasty generalization: It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses.

I'm absolutely sure what Gandhi perceives through his senses is not all the proof they got. I mean, the guy wore glasses. On we go with a false dilemma: 

"Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not know who rules or why and how He rules and yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules." 

There are so many religions! Scientology doesn't even have a God. There are more options than just thinking there is a power that rules and not knowing what this power is because when people have a religion they are certain about what this power is. Gandhi also uses ignorance as proof.

"In my tour last year in Mysore I met many poor villagers and I found upon inquiry that they did not know who ruled Mysore." 

Gandhi didn't ask every single villager. I bet he asked a few and came up with this hasty generalization. 

They simply said some God ruled it. If the knowledge of these poor people was so limited about their ruler I who am infinitely lesser in respect to God than they to their ruler need not be surprised if I do not realize the presence of God - the King of Kings.

Then I thought "King of Kings" was a tautology. It seems a tautology is different words with the same meaning, thus this idea was wrong. 

"I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power of spirit is God, and since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is."

Just because Gandhi doesn't see anything that he can consider "the informing spirit of God," it just is. This is both a misinterpretation of the evidence and an example of the fallacy of ignorance. It's amazing Gandhi was able to fit two fallacies in one sentence.

"And is this power benevolent or malevolent ? I see it as purely benevolent, for I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists." 

False dilemma alarm. This idea makes no sense! How can Gandhi say there is only white (benevolence) when all he does is mix it with black (malevolence)? Theres is a spectrum of greys that result from this idea! 

"Where there is realization outside the senses it is infallible."

Fallacy of ignorance.  

"It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within. Such testimony is to be found in the experiences of an unbroken line of prophets and sages in all countries and climes. To reject this evidence is to deny oneself."

Reductio ad absurdum AND complex cause fallacy.

"I confess that I have no argument to convince through reason."

Dude, we noticed.

Misinformercials

I'll kick this post off by telling you guys the fallacious comment my aunt tried on my cousin. He attempted to eat a banana, one of the small variety, in one bite because my brother did it. He gagged when trying. "If Sergio [my brother] jumps out a window, would you to?" 

"If he survived I probably would."

"If he survived I probably would." Wow. That was the stupidest retort I've heard AND it sounded worse in Spanish. Sergio could lose both arms and a leg and still survive. There's nothing left to say here.

This little occurrence just took place in my house and was perfect to get in a rhetorical mood. 

There's an ongoing debate on topics like gay marriage and abortion. I ask myself whether the "right way" foul applies to this argument. I consider that like beauty, what's right and what's wrong is up to the person to decide. Concepts as abstract as these have no right or wrong. In my opinion, it just can't be determined. Others have a truth. One doesn't know if the opponent is lying, so one must focus on trying to find out.

1. Try to discover who's needs the persuader is trying to meet.

2. Understand how much of an extremist your opponent is.

Back to abortion, I asked some people whether they supported it, didn't, or wouldn't respond. More tan 80% of the people I asked told me "That depends on the situation, if my girlfriend got pregnant I'd make her get and abortion / I support abortion in are of rape." In this case there was no space for sussing but it was very close to assessing practical wisdom.

Off to another topic, Juliana's blog. Good analysis on the Pajama Jeans commercial even though, sadly, this product already exists and goes by the name of jeggings. Yup, you combine leggings and jeans to get these pants, which are just as comfortable as the Pajama Jeans and much prettier (as I see it). I do agree with Juliana when she says that the comparable experience is very clear and I do see it in many commercials when I wake up! Like this one. Or this one. Or all the other commercials that make me want to go back to sleep. And Isabella has the same thoughts.

Seems like every blog I've read (of the people who did their homework) talks about Infomercials. And it seems like I'm a rhetorical wit. Isabella's post showed me all the fallacies in the video she linked when  all I saw was an easy way for people with weak, not-so-sexy midsection into a world of ponies and better looking abs. Restating Isabella's rhetorical question, who'd have thought? Definitely not me!

Zenophobia: Fear of an open space in your knowledge

It sucks to suck, but it's even worse to be a suck-up. Or that's what I used to think until I read Chapter 15. If your rhetorical skills reach certain level, you can turn a rebel into a suck-up. There's only one way to protect yourself from the benefits (or evils) or rhetoric: education.

It's like taking a quiz without studying, it's highly improbable you pass the exam if you haven't studied or at least heard a little about the topic. Same thing with rhetoric. There are many people and companies ready to trick you with their fallacious arguments. Don't be alarmed, knowing about the topic will surely aid you.

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Following what Mr. Tangen does in class, I read the maxim at the beginning of the chapter. It reads:

Rhetoric is an open palm, dialect is a closed fist. 
                                                                - Zeno

I tried to close read it but all my ideas were vague, but it seems they were closer to the correct answer than I thought. On page 159, Heinrichs writes on how he "loves rhetoric's lack of rules." This lack of rules is represented by an open palm while dialect, with grammar, spelling, and its other categories in which one could screw up, is shown as a closed fist. Makes sense. If I were this Zeno, I'd have used other objects. One could consider Heinrichs used Zeno's maxim since, as I just discovered, he's a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and the creator of dialect. These two titans just collided.

Enigma Paradigma

Ok, so it has been hard to write this blogpost. I unintentionally left it for the last moment, but my nerdiness forced me not to procrastinate any longer. 

I know that an enthymeme uses commonplaces to convince the audience to make a given choice. The book give an example on page 125:

Babes go for Priapic owners.

You should buy a Priapic.

In other words, if you want babes spend lots of money on a Priapic. Seems simple doesn't it? Well, I spent like 10 minutes trying to write my own and this is what I came up with:

Concise blogposts are best and get high grades. (Proof or premise)

I'll get a high grade. (Conclusion)

Haha, see what I did there? 

My enthymeme falls under deductive logic, which starts with a premise (commonplace) and then applies to my specific case to reach a conclusion. Here goes another one:

The Weasleys are alive and well. (Example)

So, all gingers have a soul. (General fact)

I know, this one was a bad example of inductive logic. These types of enthymemes take "specific cases and [use] them to prove a premise or conclusion." (125)

I read the whole chapter and didn't find "paradigm." As I think of my cozy bed I give you this sort of mediocre definition of the word, the Internet's one:

A paradigm is a typical example or pattern of something; a model.

I still don't understand the context of this word in Thank You For Arguing, but I'll go sleep because:

To have a good day people need 8 hours of sleep.

I'll have a good day.

YOLO. 

Over and out.