n.
A question to which no answer is expected, often used for rhetorical effect.
| Dictionary: rhetorical question |
A question to which no answer is expected, often used for rhetorical effect.
| Idioms: rhetorical question |
A question asked without expecting an answer but for the sake of emphasis or effect. The expected answer is usually "yes" or "no." For example, Can we improve the quality of our work? That's a rhetorical question. [Late 1800s]
| Literary Dictionary: rhetorical question |
rhetorical question, a question asked for the sake of persuasive effect rather than as a genuine request for information, the speaker implying that the answer is too obvious to require a reply, as in Milton's line
For what can war but endless war still breed?
| Grammar Dictionary: rhetorical question |
A question posed without expectation of an answer but merely as a way of making a point: “You don't expect me to go along with that crazy scheme, do you?”
| Poetry Glossary: Rhetorical Question |
A question solely for effect, with no answer expected. By the implication that the answer is obvious, it is a means of achieving an emphasis stronger than a direct statement.
| Wikipedia: Rhetorical question |
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A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for its persuasive effect without the expectation of a reply (ex: "Why me, Lord?")[1] Rhetorical questions encourage the listener to reflect on what the implied answer to the question must be. When a speaker states, "How much longer must our people endure this injustice?", no formal answer is expected. Rather, it is a device used by the speaker to assert or deny something.
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Often a rhetorical question is intended as a challenge, with the implication that the question is difficult or impossible to answer. Thus the question functions as a negative assertion. For example, What has he ever done for me? should be read as He has never done anything for me. Similarly, Shakespeare's Here was a Caesar! when comes such another? ("Julius Caesar," Act 3, scene 2, 257) functions as an assertion that Caesar possesses rare qualities that may not be seen again for a long time, if ever.
Such negative assertions may function as positives in sarcastic contexts. For example the sarcastic who knew? functions as an assertion that the preceding statement is utterly obvious: Smoking causes lung cancer. Who knew?
One common form is where a rhetorical question is used as a metaphor for a question already asked. Examples may be found in the song Maria from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The Sound of Music, in which the How do you solve a problem like Maria? is repeatedly answered with another question: How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?, How do you keep a wave upon the sand? and How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? These responses may be taken as asserting that "the problem of Maria" cannot be solved; and furthermore the choice of cloud, wave and moonbeam as metaphors for Maria give insight into her character and the nature of the problem.
In the vernacular, this form of rhetorical question is most often seen as rhetorical affirmation, where the certainty or obviousness of the answer to a question is expressed by asking another, often humourous, question for which the answer is equally obvious; popular examples include Is the sky blue?, Is the Pope Catholic? and Does a bear shit in the woods?
Sometimes the implied answer to a rhetorical question is "Yes, but I wish it were not so" or vice versa:
Another common form is the expression of doubt by questioning a statement just made; for example, by appending Or did he?, or is it?, etcetera to a sentence.
Rhetorical questions may be signalled by marker phrases; for example a question that begins with after all is usually intended as rhetorical.
In the 1580s, English printer Henry Denham invented a "rhetorical question mark" for use at the end of a rhetorical question; however, it died out of use in the 1600s. It was the reverse of an ordinary question mark, so that instead of the main opening pointing back into the sentence, it opened away from it.[2]
Some have adapted the question mark into various irony marks, but these are very rarely seen.
| Look up rhetorical question in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Idioms. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Grammar Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more | |
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