For all my baby ears out there who can’t use their imagination; this episode contains spoiler alerts for Season 6, Episode 18 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. When Sgt. Terry Jeffords announces to his beloved Brooklyn Nine-Nine that he’s “not in denial, he’s in deNIAL,” everyone looks at him as if he’s crazy. “Is Jeffords broken?” Captain Holt asks Detective Diaz. Except Jeffords isn’t crazy. He’s using the rhetorical figure of antanaclasis--breaking against reflection--in which a single word or phrase...

I’m going to pose the radical idea that people can be polite, maybe even civil, and still sprinkle in some profanity. That said, while too much cursing may not necessarily be uncivil, it does, at a certain point, become overkill.  A good example is the cookbook Thug Kitchen, subtitled: “eat like you give a f**k.” The presumed edginess of profanity in public takes over actually saying anything interesting. You can be cliche by having no opinion and just saying things are nice and cool or you...

Cliches are rhetorical weapons of mass destruction.  In 1963, Hitler’s second-in-command, Adolph Eichmann, was tried for war crimes in Jerusalem. In attendance at the trial was Hannah Arendt, a philosopher and journalist and also a Jew who managed to escape Europe during Nazi occupation.  Arendt, who is brilliant, unsurprisingly made a lot of brilliant observations. Foremost among them was the degree to which Eichmann’s ability to put six million people to their horrifying deaths depending on...

This is RhetoricLee Speaking, Episode Five. Brittany Runs a Marathon... and I run into real trouble believing she only ran it because she hit her rock bottom. Nothing demonstrates the seduction and disappointment of the rock bottom cliche better than the movie, Brittany Runs a Marathon, released last year on Amazon Prime. The movie tells the story of a hot mess millennial who, “hitting her rock bottom,” turns her life around and runs the New York City Marathon. The problem with the narrative...

Ep 4 Girl, Stop Challenging People + Rachel Hollis This is RhetoricLee Speaking, Episode Four: Unless you’re a CrossFit instructor, or an affronted 18th-century Duke, stop challenging people; I’m talking to you Rachel Hollis. The phrase “I challenge you” seems like it’s almost become a prerequisite for getting into the motivational life coach entrepreneur market these days. With every sentence I’m being challenged to have gratitude, stop procrastinating, and live my miracle morning. And all...

This is RhetoricLee Speaking, Episode Three: If you took the time to write it, don’t throw out the script; it’s not going to end well. You think it’s gonna be all Rick-at-Bird-Person’s-Wedding but it’s probably gonna be more Maya-at-Ainsley-and-Kash’s-Wedding.   “Throwing out the script” is a familiar cliche in television and movies; that moment when, in a ferver of authenticity, a person ditches their preplanned remarks and, to bring in a second cliche for kicks, decides to speak from the...

This is RhetoricLee Speaking, Episode Two: Being hated is not a virtue and Shakespeare never said it was, just ask Mitt Romney.  In the immortal words of William Shakespeare: “Love me or hate me, both are in my favor…If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart…If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.” Except Shakespeare never wrote that. The quote lives on because it rehearses a worn-out sentiment masquerading as an interesting thought. The quote seems to be rejecting the love/hate...

Ep. 1 Believe in Anything but Yourself + Ferris Bueller’s Day Off This is RhetoricLee Speaking, Episode One: Ferris Bueller wants you to believe in yourself and that’s a bad idea, even if James Clear says it’s not. In the notorious opening monologue from the 80s classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Bueller charms the pants of his audience with a well-packaged cliche: “believe in yourself.” But it’s a trap. You are supposed to see Bueller’s obvious superficiality for what it is; when you take it...