Exercise 5-11

Exercise 5-11

1. “Yes, a lot of innocent civilians are being killed by the bombing in both North and South Vietnam, but do remember that Asians do not believe in the importance of individual lives like we do. Life just doesn’t mean as much to them.”

a. demonizing. b. Fostering xenophobia. c. Otherizing. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

2. No, we should not raise the minimum wage for agricultural workers. Many of those people are illegal, and besides, they’re happy to work for low wages or they would not have come to this country to begin with.

a. demonizing.

b. Fostering xenophobia. c. Otherizing. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

3. Immigrants, legal and a. demonizing. illegal, are coming over here by the thousands and taking b. Fostering xenophobia. jobs away from us—and jobs are already hard enough for c. Otherizing. us to find. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

4. About 47% percent of the a. demonizing. American public receive benefits from the b. Fostering xenophobia. government and about the same percentage pay no income tax. They are c. Otherizing. takers, not like you and me. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

5. The motorcycle gangs that come through here regularly are like nothing you’ve ever seen. They are filthy, they dress like wild people, they are foul-mouthed, and their motorcycles make such a racket it drives you crazy. Decent folk can hardly go out in the street while they’re here. We have got to get the city council to do something to stop this terrible invasion.

a. demonizing.

b. Fostering xenophobia. c. Otherizing. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

6. It is indeed an unintended consequence of the new voting laws here in our state that a few people who do not have government-issued photo identification will have trouble voting. The purpose of the laws was to help discourage voter fraud, although nobody is certain whether that has been a problem in our state.

a. demonizing.

b. Fostering xenophobia. c. Otherizing. d. Fear or hate mongering.

e. No rhetorical impact.

7. Planned Parenthood is badly named. “Planned Population Control” is more like it. The head of that outfit has said that she’d be for killing any infant that survived an abortion, and that’s murder! There are true friends, I tell you! And they give hundreds of presentations a year in Los Angeles schools. They are insinuating their foul views of humanity into our own children!

a. demonizing. b. Fostering xenophobia. c. Otherizing. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

8. An upper-class British woman around the turn of the last century: “Working people are supposed to work; what could they possibly want with a day off?”

a. demonizing. b. Fostering xenophobia. c. Otherizing. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

9. It isn’t just the number of illegals that are streaming across our borders. It’s the fact that they are universally poor, mainly illiterate, and without real means of selfsupport. That means our welfare system, the one you can I pay dearly to support, will be clogged with invaders.

a. demonizing.

b. Fostering xenophobia. c. Otherizing. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

10. Crime is going to get nothing but worse with the growth in population, and neither your family nor your property is safe anymore. There have been break-ins, home invasions, and muggings right here in our town. Get an alarm system. Better yet, get a gun.

a. demonizing.

b. Fostering xenophobia. c. Otherizing. d. Fear or hate mongering. e. No rhetorical impact.

11. “Making a former CEO a. Rhetorical analogy. the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission b. Rhetorical explanation. is like putting a fox in charge of the henhouse.” c. Innuendo. d. Dysphemism.

e. Not a slanter.

12. “Right. George Bush ‘won’ the election in 2000, didn’t he?

a. A weasler.

b. A dysphemism. c. A downplayer. d. A rhetorical explanation. e. Not a slanter.

13. “The obvious truth is a. Proof surrogate. that bilingual education has been a failure.” b. Weasler. c. Innuendo d. Dysphemism.

e. Not a slanter.

14. After George W. Bush announced he wanted to turn a substantial portion of the federal government operation over to private companies, Bobby L. Harnage Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said Bush had “declared allout war on federal employees.”

a. Rhetorical explanation. b. Euphemism. c. Weasler. d. Hyperbole/rhetorical analogy. e. Not a slanter.

15. “Harry and his daughter had a little discussion about her outfit…one that left her in tears.”

a. Loaded questions.

b. Euphemism. c. Both a and b. d. Neither a nor b.

16. “Before any more of my tax dollars go to the military, I’d like answers to some questions, such as why are we spending billions of dollars on weapons programs that don’t work.”

a. downplayer.

b. Dysphemism. c. Proof surrogate. d. Loaded question.

e. Hyperbole and loaded question.

17. “Can Governor Evans be believed when he says he will fight for the death penalty? You be the judge.”

a. dysphemism. b. Proof surrogate. c. Innuendo. d. Hyperbole.

e. No slanters.

18. President Obama promised change, but he has continued to turn government operation over to private companies, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, just like his predecessor did.

a. hyperbole. b. Dysphemism. c. Loaded question. d. Proof surrogate. e. Downplayer.

19. “Studies confirm what 3everyone knows: smaller classes make kids better learners.”

a. Proof surrogate.

b. Weasler. c. Hyperbole. d. Innuendo.

e. No slanter.

20. Man selling his car: “True it has a few dents, but that’s just normal wear and tear.”

a. Loaded question.

b. Innuendo. c. Dysphemism. d. Euphemism.

Exercise 5-16 in groups.