Trick Question

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bozz28.4 K2 days agoPeakD5 min read

Questions are really interesting things. They come in so many different forms and styles. No doubt in your years on this Earth, you have asked and answered more questions than you can count. As early as our first words, we are asking questions about just about everything. I have a great niece who is going to be turning one soon, and though she can't quite talk yet, you can already see the wheels turning in her head as she explores her world. The questions are forming before she can even express them and before too long her mom and grandparents are going to be inundated with questions.

There used to be a pretty cool question and answer platform here on HIVE. Well, actually, it was on that platform before HIVE I think, but it was a very interesting beast. In fact, I think a lot of my current success here on HIVE can probably be attributed to that question and answer platform. I was able to grow my bags quite significantly from the rewards I earned there.

Every now and then after the evening news finishes up, my wife and I find ourselves watching Jeopardy on TV. Also more often than not, I tend to know the answers to a good number of the questions on the show. @mrsbozz keeps saying to me that I should try to go on the show, but I always argue that I would have a hard time giving my answers in the form of a question.

Interesting that something which normally comes so easy to us is so hard to actually put into practice when it comes to Jeopardy. I'm guessing it's something you have to train for, the putting "what is" or "what was" in front of everything you say. I wonder if folks that have been on Jeopardy find themselves talking different even after their time on the show is finished.

The reason I am writing this post is because the other day I had a question posed to me and it made me laugh a little bit when I heard it. It's not that the question was funny, but the way it was used I found interesting. I've actually notice this phenomenon before, and I was going to write a post about it a while ago, but I guess I forgot.

Obviously, there are different kinds of questions. Dumb ones, rhetorical ones, trick ones, hypothetical, closed, open, probing, reflective.... You get the idea. I might throw this in the rhetorical category as it was used to make a point more than to bring out an answer. Maybe even a trick one if you want to dig into it really deep, but I think you will agree, there is really no trick to the question at all.

I'm sure if you are married, you are probably familiar with questions like this:

"Do you want to come put away these dishes?"

I love her to death, but @mrsbozz does this all the time. It's a question, but it's not really a question you see. Do I want to get up off the couch where I am cozy watching football and take care of the dishes? No, probably not.

The funny thing is, at the base level the question above doesn't express the sense of urgency that is implicitly there. However, we all know it's there. Oddly enough, I think I'd almost take it better if she simply said, hey, I need these dishes out of the way right now. "Yes ma'am, at your service, let me get right on that."

Posing it in the form of a question has what might be considered a passive aggressive undertone. Like I have some kind of choice in the matter. When clearly there is no choice. You either do it or you suffer the consequences. As if putting it in the form of a question softens the blow a bit.

Is it weird that I actually feel like it makes it cut even deeper. Believe me, I know I am not the perfect husband, and I really try my best to be a reliable and helpful companion for my wife. That being said, there are certainly times when I fail miserably at anticipating what priority she has on certain tasks in the house.

I'm guessing if @mrsbozz ever reads this post she won't be amused, and while it might come across as a rant, I actually write this post out of love. I'd hate to imagine a day when those needs veiled as questions stop coming my way.

How about you? Have you ever experienced this phenomenon? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!