Request:
No. Check that. Demand:
Remove the rhetorical “Guess what? from your lexicon immediately.
Not every “Guess what?” is bad. “Guess what?” is perfectly acceptable much of the time.
But the rhetorical “Guess what?” is never acceptable.
“My boss wants us to do so-and-so? Well, guess what? It will be a cold day in hell before that ever happens.”
No. Stop it. Almost all rhetorical questions are annoying, but the “Guess what?” rhetorical question is especially so, since the people who use it seem to use it all the time.
Remove the “Guess what?” from the previous example and the only thing that changes is the perceived intelligence of the speaker.
“My boss wants us to do so-and-so? Well, it will be a cold day in hell before that ever happens.”
See what I mean? It’s a cleaner sentence. It’s more economic. But most important, it eliminates the cloying, under confident, needy sentiment that “Guess what?” brings to an argument. “Guess what?” implies that the listener needs to be more actively engaged than he or she already is. “Guess what?” suggests a false sense of audience participation. “Guess what?” hints at a speaker who is concerned with his or her ability to garner your attention.
“Guess what?” screams of desperation.
No more. Rid yourself of this verbal tick. This rhetorical blunder. This wasteful, purposeless, annoying turn of phrase.
