Reality Reconstruction

You Too Can Harness The Power Of Presuppositions

This article is in a series of articles on linguistic presuppositions. These are simple yet powerful language patterns that when used effectively, can be very useful to covertly and conversationally persuade and influence others.

The pattern for today is “Repetitive Cue Words.” These are words like “too,” “again,” “back,” “also,” and “either.” As they are single words, and not a grammatical pattern like many of the other presuppositions, they are highly flexible and can be used a number of ways.

In general, when you use these words, you are “revisiting” an idea in a sentence, either an idea you’ve explicitly stated, or one that has been implicitly thought of by either you or another person, and you are simply referring to it again.

For example, for the idea of “exercise is the best way to lose weight”:

I heard that exercise is the best way to lose weight, and no matter how many diets and methods I’ve tried, I keep coming back to that simple truth.

In this case, the idea has been expressed once, and then come “back” to by the speaker, effectively repeating it as a “rediscovered truth,” something that would be difficult to disagree with.

Another example, using the same idea:

Most leading dieticians, while agreeing that what you eat is important, always come back to the basic principle that daily exercise is the best way to lose weight.

In this case the first instance of the idea is only implied, and is only actually mentioned when it is “come back” to. This implies that these dieticians (whoever they are) knew this at the beginning, and keep coming “back” to it.

For the idea of “dollar cost averaging is the best way to make money in the stock market,” consider the word “again.”

Again and again, people consistently realize that dollar cost averaging is the best way to make money in the stock market.

In this case, combining “again and again” with “people” implies that many people, over the course of some vague period of time, are independently realizing the power of dollar cost averaging. As stated above, it is hard to argue with.

How about this one:

Investment bankers also realize the wealth building of power of dollar cost averaging.

Here a group of people is implied. Investment bankers realize the power of dollar cost averaging, in addition to some other unnamed group. The reader or listener will generally assume this “group” to be of the same expertise, from a financial perspective, as investment bankers. This is very powerful, as it implies social proof from whatever group of people the listener or reader cares to imagine.

How about the power of presuppositions?

Sales people that consistently outperform their peers again and again understand the power of simple linguistic presuppositions to give them an incredible edge.

Top closers in any company also understand the subtle power of presuppositions to give them incredibly lucrative skills in sales.

Despite the many years of training and seminars, top sales people come back again and again to the simple power of presuppositions, which can be learned in their entirety by reading this blog on a daily basis.

You can either continue to try method after method, or you too, like many others, can come back to the simple strategy of combining subtly powerful presuppositions which will lead you again and again to increasing sales and personal income.

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