 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsEnglish UsageBritish EnglishESL Teaching Learnglish.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010I'll get right to the point.
By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to the point. > By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to > the point. But if you don't make a point of getting to the point they might not get the point you are trying to make. > > By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to > > the point. > > But if you don't make a point of getting to the point they might not get the > point you are trying to make. They probably won't in either case. > By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to > the point. No, in speech (cf. say, above) this is a common and effective rhetorical device, even though the phrase supplies no information by itself. In writing, however, it is wordy i.e. redundant.  SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) > > By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to > > the point. [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Carlsbad Springs > (Ottawa, Canada) No, it is a hypocritical and offensively stupid affectation. I received a letter from the president of the AARP that began with that affectation and it caused me to immediately throw the letter away. So much for "effective rhetorical device." It would make more sense to say, "I'm going to meander for a long time." aruzinsky filted: >> > By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to >> > the point. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >much for "effective rhetorical device." It would make more sense to >say, "I'm going to meander for a long time." Cf "before I start I want to say something"...a hit on Google for every mile from here to the moon...sheesh....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? >By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to >the point. By saying, "Let me be perfectly honest", the speaker not only fails to get to the point, he causes some people to question his honesty in other situations, but preambles such as these are not unusual, in conversations. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE > On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:10:35 -0800 (PST), aruzinsky > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Chuck Riggs, > An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE At least, that is not a self contradiction. I suspect that verbose, meandering speech is often effective because it hypnotizes the reader or listener. > By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to > the point. Which doesn't contradict your expressed intention to do so in the future (relative to the sentence). Saying "I am getting right to the point" or "I have gotten right to the point" at the beginning would be silly, but nobody does that. The reason to tell people that you are planning on getting right to the point, of course, is that your audience might assume that you are planning to meander for a while and they can safely ignore the first half hour of what you say without missing anything important. You're warning them that that is not a good assumption. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |He who will not reason, is a bigot; 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |he who cannot is a fool; and he who Palo Alto, CA 94304 |dares not is a slave. | Sir William Drummond kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ "Aruzinsky": > > By saying, "I'll get right to the point.", I failed to get right to > > the point. Evan Kirshenbaum: > Which doesn't contradict your expressed intention to do so in the > future (relative to the sentence). Saying "I am getting right to the > point" or "I have gotten right to the point" at the beginning would be > silly, but nobody does that. In short, it's not "I'll get right to the point."; it's "I'll get right to the point:". SignatureMark Brader There are people on that train! Toronto Sure, they're Canadians, but they're still people! msb@vex.net -- Paul Gross, "Due South" |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.