Covert Persuasion With Presuppositions – The Pseudo Cleft Sentence
What’s amazing is how powerful these patterns are
This is another article in a series on how you can use linguistic presuppositions to easily and naturally persuade others to your way of thinking. Linguistic presuppositions are sentences that on a logical level are very hard to argue with. When you combine several of them together, their persuasive power can be extremely difficult to resist, so be careful not to make anybody think or do something they will later regret.
Today’s topic is the pseudo cleft sentence. Similar to the cleft sentence, but slightly more powerful. The basic pattern is this:
What (idea1) is (idea2)
Where idea1 and idea2 are phrases of varying lengths. The best way to use these is to set it up so idea1 is a positive outcome that your listener or reader will likely enjoy, and idea2 is the cause of idea1, of which you are trying to persuade your audience.
A couple examples
Idea1 = nice, slim, sexy body, drawing the attraction of members of the opposite sex
Idea1 = daily exercise
Sentence:
What will give you an incredibly slim body that will get you more attention than you’ve ever thought possible is simple daily exercise of only a few minutes.
Idea1 = money, (lots and lots of it)
Idea2 = dollar cost averaging
Sentence:
What will get you wealth that consistently grows on its own is the simple practice of dollar cost averaging.
Idea1 = powerful persuasion skills
Idea2 = linguistic presuppositions
Sentence:
What will absolutely skyrocket your persuasion skills so that you can pretty much sell anything to anybody are linguistic presuppositions.
You can juice these up a little bit by prefacing the beginning “What” with some commentary adjectives or adjective phrases:
It’s amazing that what will create a stunning body is simple daily exercise.
It’s funny that most people don’t know that what gives most expert salespeople their massive closing ratios are these simple things called linguistic presuppositions.
It’s absolutely incredible that what can set you up for a comfortable retirement is simple dollar cost averaging.
It’s amazing that what will give you incredible insight into human language, so that you can not only persuade others with ease, but also know when other people are using these powerful skills to try and manipulate you, is reading this blog on a daily basis for more and more information.
