Keith Douglas
Last time Alex thanked me and again talked about music and song. Wonderful! I have no direct response to anything I wrote about and will move on to this month’s topic. I do intend to return to some of the topics later, but for now…
Presuppositions of Questions
This time, I would like to consider presuppositions of questions. These are things taken for granted, usually assumed to be true, for a question to make sense. For example, the proverbial “gotcha” question from a lawyer, “When did you stop beating your dog?” presupposes that you beat your dog. Here are a series of questions with presuppositions in this sense to get us started. We will return to this topic next month.
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
- What happened before the big bang?
- Why does the caged bird sing?
- Why did the chicken cross the road?
- What happens when an irresistible force is applied to an immovable object?
- What is the number after infinity?
- Who is the current President of Canada?
- Who is the emperor of ice cream?
- How do colourless green ideas sleep?
- Why does Jane no longer write science fiction?
- Why does Jane no longer write about even prime numbers greater than two?
- How can Snoopy talk to the birds?
- Why is Mr. Scott such a good engineer?
- What happens when uranium perxenate is mixed with ethanol at 50 degrees C and stirred?
- How can all those clowns fit in that car?
See you in May.
Presupposition #15: All those clowns in the car explained, courtesy of my late father-in-law, who was a Shriner dressed as a clown. The car is an old model, repainted, and with its floorboards removed. The car is pushed to the middle of the arena floor, positioned over a hidden trap door. The trap door is opened to allow the 20-odd clowns waiting below to climb up inside the hollowed-out car one by one, then exit by the car door to fanfare. But you already knew that, didn’t you?
(taking the bait) for #9: Furiously.