The "H" Word


Rhiannon loves language, and she especially loves that there are power-words that outweigh, outfight, outrun, and outwit anything even the most polished rhetorician can devise. Right now, her favorite power word is the "H" word. That's right. Rhiannon is a master of the rhetoric of "Ha!".

"Ha!" (always spelled with an exclamation point) trumps most, if not all, other power-words, including, "So?" (also with punctuation). An example, if you will indulge me:

Dad: That's the biggest volcano I have ever seen!

Rhiannon: So?

Dad, deflated, walks the rest of the trail in silence.

"So?" disarms the opponent and quiets him, and also implies that the opponent's statement is old news, and that, in this example, Rhiannon has in fact seen volcanoes that are much, MUCH bigger than this one, and belittles her opponents experience. It's a passive-aggressive argument ender.

But what of "Ha!"? Another example:

Dad: That's the strangest bug I've ever seen!

Rhiannon: Hunter and I saw a queen ant that had wings and was part bee and part ant and it was yellow and hideous. Ha!"

or . . .

Dad: Why don't we turn off the television and read some books?

Rhiannon: Mom said I could finish watching High Five. Ha!

In both scenarios, "Ha!" becomes synonymous with "so there!", one level above "so?" in that its aggressiveness is intended to eviscerate the opponent, completely demoralizing him while at the same time being overt in asserting dominance over the opponent. Whereas "so?" may sometimes lead to the opponent racing to qualify his statement to meet Rhiannon's approval, "Ha!" makes no bones about ending the argument.

It's the H-bomb.

Rhiannon. Rhetorically Cute.

Andrew (Papa)