How to Apologise for Killing a Cat: Rhetoric and the Art of Persuasion

By Guy Doza

Fun guide that decodes language tricks used in everyday life
Packed with quotations from Caesar to Elizabeth 1 to Barack Obama
Illustrated throughout with cartoons and graphs
After reading you will never see the world the same way again

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canbury
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781912454716

Book preview

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HOW TO

APOLOGISE

FOR KILLING A CAT

Rhetoric and the

Art of Persuasion

Guy Doza

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For my family

who have helped me practise arguing all my life

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Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Touching the Heart

The Three Musketeers of Rhetoric

Logos

Ethos

Pathos

Repetition

Repetition (Again!)

Tricks of the Tirade

Logical Fallacies

To Question, or Not to Question – That Is the Question

I’m Sorry I Did It… Apologies

Rhetoric in Times of Crisis

Rhetoric in the Workplace

Rhetoric and Sex

(Pubs, Tinder and the Gutter)

The End and a Quiz

Glossary

Acknowledgements

Index

Copyright

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‘I have a dream’

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Introduction

Have you ever had that unpleasant anxiety of taking your car to the mechanic and feeling like you’re being swindled? Most of you will probably know exactly what I am talking about. We don’t know how cars work, we don’t know what the parts are called and we don’t know how to fix them ourselves. This lack of knowledge makes us vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation, and we know it. So does the mechanic.

Now, most mechanics are honest individuals, not rogues, but can we say the same of people who run countries and big companies? When it comes to ordinary life away from the car engine or central heating boiler, most of us don’t even realise just how vulnerable we are. People can use persuasive language to swindle us, cheat us, and exploit us to the hilt. And the worst part is that we are not even aware that it is happening.

Welcome to rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Rhetoric is a superpower. It can alter the way we think, the way we behave and sometimes even the way we live our lives. And its most 12explosive charge lies in its subtlety. We need to be aware of how such persuasive language is used, not only so that we can be more persuasive ourselves, but also so that we can defend ourselves against the rhetorical advances of those who would seek to exploit us.

A Dark Art?

For too long, rhetoric has been a dark and ancient art confined to the secretive circles of politics and academia. This mystery and misunderstanding has often led to the public to consider it to be the tool of crooks, spin doctors and villains. But no more! The time has come to bring rhetoric out of the darkness and show it for what it is: a mighty linguistic tool. Whether it is a conversation between friends in a café, a pathetic attempt to flirt at a bar, or a meaningful conversation with a world-renowned philosopher, rhetoric is everywhere. It is how we invoke authenticity, how we convey meaning, and how we convince.

So as well as looking at the grand speeches of eloquent orators and established speakers, this book will delve into the street rhetoric that we encounter in our everyday lives. Whether it’s a cheap use of ethos or a dodgy use of occultatio, rhetoric is thriving in our offices, dwelling in our pubs and lurking in our very homes. We are going to look at some of the forms that rhetoric can take as it attempts to twist our thoughts and muddy our reasoning.13

Sadly, reading this book will not turn you into an eloquent millionaire who is able to close billion dollar business deals, perform Jedi mind tricks, and convince anyone of anything. There are plenty of gimmicky books out there if that is what you are looking for. Rather, this book is designed to help you become more aware of the role that rhetoric plays in the world around us: the good, the bad and the ugly. And, with a certain amount of caution, you will be more prepared to use it yourself while simultaneously being conscious of how it might be used against you, whether for morality, for manipulation, money, or malice.

The Power of Rhetoric

Imagine you had a magical power that allowed you to know exactly what a person was thinking. You could go into their brain, reprogramme their thoughts and send them whichever way you want. This is the power of rhetoric. Rhetoric is mind control through words. It started in the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome. The Roman orator Cicero is considered to be one of the founding fathers of rhetoric. Over 2,000 years ago, he wrote down a set of rules and guidelines to teach his fellow Romans how to speak more persuasively. These rules are still taught in the 21st Century in schools, universities and corporate communication training workshops. Cicero defined rhetoric as the ability to transform the impulses of people, the scruples of jurors, or the authority of the Senate itself.14

Words shape how we live our lives. For example, perhaps you have seen an advert that told you that dentists prefer to use a certain type of toothpaste. Perhaps you have heard an emotive speech that has convinced you to vote for a certain political party. Perhaps a friend has persuaded you to order takeaway pizza for dinner. All of these decisions affect our lives, for great or small, and all of these decisions are influenced by our choice of words.

I want you to imagine a racist person: a vile, offensively-tattooed neo-Nazi who stomps around in a leather coat and hates Jews, Muslims and black people and believes that history is a series of conspiracy theories that were orchestrated to vilify the Nazis. What made that person get their hateful tattoos? What made them buy that black leather coat? What made them hate certain minority groups? The answer is: ideology. Our thoughts and opinions dictate how we live our lives and persuasive language can radically influence our thoughts and opinions. In the wrong hands, rhetoric can be dangerous. It can fuel ideologies that lead to atrocities, it can distort reasoning to exonerate dictators, and it can be used to justify murder. All of these examples have happened in the past and are still happening today. Rhetoric is eloquence. Eloquence is power. And power can be good or evil.

The Uses of Rhetoric

Rhetoric was once seen as a noble art. But after years of abuse and superstition and a few public relations catastrophes it has become synonymous with malice, 15manipulation and deceit. Nowadays, people tend to use the word rhetoric to describe messages they disagree with, from people they don’t like. As an example, the media only ever use the word as a derogatory term when talking about unpopular figures such as the Russian President Vladimir Putin or North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Accusing someone of using rhetoric is synonymous to accusing them of using empty words devoid of substance. Of course, that can be the case and rhetoric has played a role in some horrors: Adolf Hitler used rhetoric to persuade people to believe certain things about Jews that in their mind justified the Holocaust. But that isn’t always so. Rhetoric can be used for good, too. Martin Luther King deployed rhetoric in his famous I Have a Dream speech rallying behind civil rights activists in America. His words were far from empty and they definitely didn’t lack substance, but not many people would talk about Martin Luther King’s rhetoric.

The famous Ancient Greek philosopher and rhetorician Aristotle said: ‘Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialect,’ which means that rhetoric applies to anyone who is taking part in a conversation. Whether in a text exchange, an email, a heated argument or a grandiloquent speech, everyone uses it, whether consciously or not. The ordinary and the great, toddlers and tyrants, kings and paupers all dabble in rhetoric. Is it an art? Absolutely. Some people succeed at using rhetoric effectively without any practice, and some people practise to get better. As Aristotle points out – this is the nature of art.16

So we’ve covered what rhetoric is in theory and I have mentioned its impact on history. At this point you probably want to see a practical example. Well here it is. If you are trying to persuade someone of something and you choose a specific word because you know it will be more effective, you are using rhetoric. If you restructure a sentence or paragraph so that the emphasis falls on a specific word, you are using rhetoric. If you repeat a word or phrase at the end of all of your sentences to add emphasis, you are using rhetoric. Any linguistic change that makes your message more powerful is rhetoric.

I want you to imagine that a woman meets her husband after work and notices that he looks particularly dashing that evening. She could say: ‘You’re looking good today,’ to which her husband would probably smile and enjoy the compliment. Alternatively, the wife could say: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this hot before! You look amazing!’ At which point she has probably made his day. Out of these two examples the second is much more rhetorically charged than the first, and as such, more effective in conveying meaning and emotion – which was the aim of the statement.

Rhetoric can be both subtle and profoundly effective. During World War II, Winston Churchill gave a speech in the British Parliament that re-energised Britain’s war effort. Rhetoric impacts our lives as a result of the global changes it brings about but also affects our lives as individuals: whether that is what we have for dinner or what toothpaste we buy.17

Because of the scale on which it operates and the misconceptions as to what it is, rhetoric can be tricky to define and explain. On the one hand, rhetoric is often heralded as the art of persuasion but on the other hand it is condemned as the dark magic behind persuasive language. The more you understand what rhetoric is and how it works, the more you begin to understand just how relevant it is to all of our everyday lives irrespective of our age, gender, culture or socio-economic background. Rhetoric lives in our minds and springs from our words.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly using rhetoric to package our ideas and opinions to those around us. At the same time, we are constantly barraged by the rhetorical advances of everyone and everything around us: friends, family, colleagues, politicians, tweets, adverts, media and any other form of word-based discourse or communication.

So, when can you use rhetoric? Well, when you ask your boss for a promotion, you are using rhetoric (whether you are aware of it or not). When you are trying to convince someone on a date that you’re awesome, you are using rhetoric. When explaining to your friend that it isn’t a good idea to quit their high-paying secure job to sell ice cream on the beach, you are using rhetoric. It is like grammar – something we all use, whether knowingly or not. And the more you study it and practise it, the better able you will be to explain your ideas.18

Or think of it like singing. Everyone can sing, even if you say you can’t, you can: you just may not be very good at it. Occasionally, you get people who are naturally talented singers. You also get people who have spent years practising how to sing and studying different styles and techniques. You also get people who have received professional training to make them better singers. When you meet someone who is naturally talented, has spent years training, and has received professional coaching, they have the most enchanting voice that can put almost any listener into a trance-like state. The same is true for rhetoric. There are some people who are naturally talented at applying it to their speech, there are some people who have spent years studying and practising it, and there are people who have received professional training to become better speakers. As with singers, when you meet someone who is naturally talented, has spent years practising, and has received professional coaching you are also in a trance. And when you are in that trance, you don’t scrutinise arguments as well as you would usually. You don’t question ideas because they sound so utterly convincing. This is when rhetoric can be dangerous – it can lull us into a false sense of security that makes us vulnerable. And, as I have said, our ideas and opinions dictate who we are and the ways in which we live our lives.

Seeing as rhetoric is all around us, wouldn’t it be sensible for us to learn something about it? I think so. That is why I have written this book. To share the importance of rhetoric 19in our everyday lives so that we understand how it works, how we use it, and how it is used against us. We cannot ignore the fact that the less we know about rhetoric, the easier it is for other people to exploit us. Think back to a dodgy car mechanic greedily rubbing his hands while swindling you, an unwitting customer.

Even if we can agree that rhetoric is still very much alive and kicking, many people will question how relevant it is in the modern world. How can it be possible in the age of the internet and Twitter that we still use the same rules and formulas as those toga-wearing people from a long-lost