Questions assume.
Questions are not benign. You may have heard of leading questions. These are the kinds of questions that lawyers ask witnesses to try to get the response they want. How fast were you going when you smashed into my client’s car? How many beers did you chug before you climbed into the vehicle?
Even supposedly non-leading questions, though, are based on leading assumptions. When there are too many assumptions, the question appears ridiculous. No one would ask: why do aliens eat their supper late at night? This loads too many assumptions in, and we call the person on it. A more reasonable question might be: why don’t aliens contact us? This is more acceptable because even though it gives existence to aliens, and it gives them the ability to contact us, it acknowledges the widely held belief that they haven’t. We tend to overlook the assumptions in questions because, on the whole, we tend to agree with them.
Even supposedly non-leading questions, though, are based on leading assumptions. When there are too many assumptions, the question appears ridiculous. No one would ask: why do aliens eat their supper late at night? This loads too many assumptions in, and we call the person on it. A more reasonable question might be: why don’t aliens contact us? This is more acceptable because even though it gives existence to aliens, and it gives them the ability to contact us, it acknowledges the widely held belief that they haven’t. We tend to overlook the assumptions in questions because, on the whole, we tend to agree with them.
5 Comments:
For a guy who's into linguistics and logic, your terminology is awfully sloppy in a lot of these posts... This particular post isn't about leading questions -- it's about questions that include factual assumptions. A leading question is one that suggests the desired answer, e.g., "Weren't you driving very cautiously when the accident happened?" None of the examples you cite is a leading question.
How could you say the first paragraph does not include examples of leading questions?
They're not leading because they don't suggest the desired answer. "How fast were you going . . ." doesn't suggest that the answer should be 55, 65, 75, or anything else. Same with "How many beers . . ." It doesn't lead the recipient of the question to understand what the answer should be. See my original comment for an example of a leading question.
These are more subtle examples of leading questions. By asking "how fast were you going when you SMASHED..." or "how many beers did you CHUG..."? the examples both suggest excesses. They are much more suggestive than alternatives, say "how fast were you going when you HIT..." or "how many beers did you CONSUME..."
Again, those aren't leading questions ("subtle" or otherwise) -- they're loaded questions, i.e., questions that include factual assumptions. But, since you don't seem to believe me, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_question, which has a good explanation of the distinction between and examples of both types of questions. See also www.busreslab.com/tips/tip34.htm ("Would you vote for John Smith, a man who has been known to break campaign promises?"); legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/leading+question ("Didn't the defendant appear to you to be going too fast . . .?")
This whole point is academic, and I wouldn't belabor it except that your original post was about potential misuse and misunderstanding of language, so you should be precise with the language you yourself use.
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