Asking for answers...

[susandennis]

davmoo started an interesting little threadlet to my printer plug festuche.   dkgoodman went him one better. And then iced the cake.

Instead of 'is there a diskette in the drive?' and getting an automatic-didn't-even-look answer, he'd ask 'what color is the diskette in the drive.'  Perfect!

Asking the question correctly can make all the difference. 

A million years ago, I started life as a newspaper reporter.  I learned really quickly that any question that could be answered with a yes or a no meant my story was going to suck.

Now, with the wisdom of a whole lotta years, I've learned that the trick to life is thinking ahead to what the possibly answers could be before you ask the question. 

As dkgoodman, points out, this is the acme of social engineering. 

Often it's elementary:

"You don't want to go there, do you?"
"What do you want for dinner - bull shit or cow steak?"

But sometimes it's not as easy to craft.

I often find myself thinking 'how can I ask this so he can answer truthfully and not feel guilty, sad, mean, silly, stupid or any other bad feeling'.  Or how can I ask this in a way that will not make him defensive or make him stop and really think about it? 

Mostly, though, due to way out of date memory chip, I forget.  I ask the question wrong and I get an answer I don't like and then it's really too late to fix.  Sigh.