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Much grammar is seeping into this blog these days. There were tenses and then figures of speech like metonymy and synecdoche and then euphemisms and now Rhetorical Questions (RQs).
RQ is a question whose answer is obvious to the writer or speaker or the reader and the listener; and either implied or set forth after the question...like me asking:
"Isn't my blog terrific?"
As usual, Shakespeare is full of them:
Then comes the celebrated counter-attack from Mark Antony:
http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/rhetquesterm.htm
Then comes Didimoni quoted in DC of yesterday:
Now here the issue is an RQ in its pristine form:
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RQ is a question whose answer is obvious to the writer or speaker or the reader and the listener; and either implied or set forth after the question...like me asking:
"Isn't my blog terrific?"
As usual, Shakespeare is full of them:
"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick us, do we not bleed, if you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"
- (Shylock in William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice)
Shylock implies:
"Of course, Yes!"
although Der Fuehrer would have shouted:
"Nein!!! Mein Gott! Auf Wiedersehen!"
RQs in public speeches are more dicey...the hoi polloi audience may or may not agree with the implied answer of the speaker.
Roman mobs in Julius Caesar were portrayed as dumb like so many sheep.
First comes Brutus defending his cut in the ceremonial killing of Caesar:
Thus, for example, Brutus asks the citizens of Rome: 'Who is here so
base that would be a bondman?' adding at once: 'If any, speak, for him
have I offended.' Again Brutus asks: 'Who is here so vile that will not
love his country?' Let him also speak, 'for him I have offended.' Brutus
dares to ask these rhetorical questions, knowing full well that no one
will answer his rhetorical questions in the wrong way.
So, too, Marc Antony, after describing how Caesar's conquests filled
Rome's coffers, asks: 'Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?' And after
reminding the populace that Caesar thrice refused the crown that was
offered him, Antony asks: 'Was this ambition?' Both are rhetorical
questions to which one and only one answer can be expected.
Then comes Didimoni quoted in DC of yesterday:
Angry Didi asks, shall I go and beat up PM?
Canning / Kolkata, Jan. 21
Stepping up her anti-Center tirade, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh several times to protest against fertiliser price hike but to no avail, and she could not do anymore.
"I have met PM ten times. I cannot do more than this. Shall I go and beat (him up?)" Then you will say I have become a goonda...
Ms Banerjee's comment against the Prime Minister did not go well with the Congress. Union minister Deepa Dasmunsi in Kolkata demanded that Ms Banerjee apologise for using "undemocratic language" and insulting the PM. She termed the CM "intolerant" and threatened a state-wide protest if Ms Banerjee does not apologise.
Now here the issue is an RQ in its pristine form:
"Shall I go and beat him up?"
There is a canonical story in Panchatantra about two fighting rams and a jackal. There is a typical way rams fight (unlike messy cocks). Their fight is more organized and principled than even the prizefighting in the refereed ring. The two rams start from a distance apart of about 30 feet facing each other. Then at an agreed signal they start running and ram into each other...that's why they are called rams ;)
They hit their heads against each other and lock their horns in the process. And blood will ooze onto the ground and dry up. Then they unlock their horns and get back to their initial positions like two prizefighters separated by the referee.
And turn back and rush and ram away...and so on and on till the blood on the ground at their rendezvous turns into an appetizing solid mass.
Seeing this enticing dinner, a jackal passing by rushes in to gobble it up quickly...and then you know what happens to the greedy jackal when the battering rams meet up on him in their next crashing round.
So also when Didimoni and Deepamoni are trading charges, it is a fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread...but the solid mass of blood is too appetizing for me to resist.
So, I would suggest a way out of the quarrel.
I suppose the speech that was delivered in Canning was well-attended by the thinking Bango-manush who are not dumb like the Roman mob of Shakey.
So it all depends on what they yelled back in answer to Didimoni's RQ. If all of them had shouted in unison:
"Naa...naa...naa...pitaben naa! Didimoni jindabad! jindabad! jindabad!"
in chorus, then Deepamoni has to apologize to Didimoni.
If, on the other hand, the crowd had shouted:
"Heyn Jaan...Pitoon! Amra u jachchi! Dilli chalo! Dilli chalo!"
it is the other way round and the CM has to apologize to (not the PM) but to Deepamoni.
If, on the other hand, it is 50-50 (most likely), then the PM should apologize to the nation...after a month.
This is what Sir Roger de Coverley would also have decreed.
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