BS: A question of Rhetoric

05 Sep 12 - 02:55 PM (#3400443)
Subject: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: DMcG

This is a question about rhetoric, not the Tory health policy, but I am using that as an example of the technique in question. What I want to know is the name of the technique.

The example concerns the Tory's frequent proclamation that the key feature of the NHS is that it is free at the poinht of use. But that's only part of it: with the right package, any private health insurance is also free at the point of use - after all, that's the basic concept of insurance in the first place. No, the key feature is that it is free at the point of use AND universal AND charges via tax are not dependent on what treatment you have received earlier.

So in short, the rhetorical technique is to emphasise one true feature of something, over and over again, and so implicitly downplay the other factors that are also important. It must have a name ... but what is it?

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05 Sep 12 - 03:13 PM (#3400455)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: gnu

Bullshit comes to mind. Salesman's puffing?... nah.

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05 Sep 12 - 03:35 PM (#3400461)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: Jeri

"Amplification"?

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05 Sep 12 - 04:14 PM (#3400480)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: DMcG

It's something like that, Jeri, but rather more an abuse of amplification. The goal seems to be less about emphasising the specific point, more trying to make people forget the others.

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05 Sep 12 - 04:39 PM (#3400496)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: GUEST,Lighter

I'd call it the repetition of a half-truth. What's being said, repeatedly, may be true but it is not the most significant part of the whole truth, which, if presented, might cast everything in a different light.

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05 Sep 12 - 05:04 PM (#3400504)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

How about Commoratio dwelling on or returning to one's strongest argument?

epanalepsis - might work also.

May I suggest you browse this webpage on
rhetoric at Brigham Young University.

rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/Groupings/of%20Repetition.htm

When you find the precise term...could you post it here?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

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05 Sep 12 - 05:13 PM (#3400509)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: GUEST,999

Paraleipsis?

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05 Sep 12 - 06:01 PM (#3400537)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: CupOfTea

repeating "one truth" at the expense of others sounds like a step up from what US political rhetoric is overflowing with- repeating lies so often and loudly that the truth gets stolen from those without critical capacity.

It's all depressing, innit?

c\_/

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05 Sep 12 - 07:20 PM (#3400561)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: GUEST,Lighter

It looks like Gargoyle's site simply lists the Classical names of various figures of speech. DMcG's example, however, is not a figure of speech, it's a debating or propaganda technique of the sort beloved by all politicians, publicists, lawyers, and commercial advertisers.

If I understand McG's point correctly, one may describe the technique also as deliberate slanting, or the willful suppression of significant facts.   

My favorite example: Back in the '60s, Shell ran commercials that showed a half dozen identical late model cars lined up in the desert. Only one was fueled with "Shell with Platformate," a proprietary mileage additive. The rest ran on "ordinary gasoline."

At the signal, all the cars sped across the desert. But the car powered by Shell with Platformate kept on going after the others had run out of gas. So only a rich fool wouldn't fill up with Shell with Platformate every time, right?

Wrong. What the ad didn't say (besides just *how much* farther the Shell car traveled: maybe it was only a hundred yards) was that virtually every retail brand of gas was formulated with a mileage ingredient more or less equivalent to Platformate. Shell expected you to assume that "ordinary gasoline" meant the non-Shell kind. But it didn't. It meant gasoline with no mileage booster, and you'd probably have to drive to the backwoods of Transylvania to get it. (Not to mention that gas prices in any locality vary somewhat anyway, and speeding across the desert isn't quite the same as stop-and-start city driving.)

Thus the ad also dealt in "equivocation," which is the use of unclear or ambiguous language ("ordinary gasoline") in order to mislead.

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06 Sep 12 - 02:20 PM (#3400920)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: DMcG

Thanks for the website link, Gargoyle. I'll look over it during the next day or so.

I'm not sure I think there is that much distinction, though, between your point and Lighter's. It is really a trick of sophistry I am seeking, I suppose, and I do see it as a form of deliberate slanting, but I have no doubt the ancients practised the trick as much as anyone, so I would not be at all surprised to find there's a word for it in the dictionary of rhetoric. I will let you know if I find it.

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06 Sep 12 - 02:28 PM (#3400924)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: peregrina

I think what you need is the name of the logical fallacy: the intent is to deceive!

Rhetorically it could be a part for the whole, or a sign for the whole (ie a type of metonymy or synechdoche) but since the attempt is deception not better denotation, go for a list of fallacies....

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06 Sep 12 - 03:07 PM (#3400944)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: McGrath of Harlow

It's not paraleipsis - that's about saying you aren't going to mention something in order to focus attention on it. This one is more or less the opposite - mentioning something so as to draw attention from other things.

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06 Sep 12 - 05:14 PM (#3401002)
Subject: RE: BS: A question of Rhetoric
From: GUEST,Lighter

If it's merely intended to distract the attention from something else, it's a "red herring."

In my experience, however, that name is usually given to something that is itself false or exaggerated. In this case, the repeated claim appears to be forthrightly true in itself.

The point seems to be to suppress or gloss over any inconvenient additional information.

"Suppression of evidence" undoubtedly has a Classical name, but I'm not familiar with it.

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