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Among the various pitfalls for tact, the most specific and treacherous lies in the question. Questions, notwithstanding Samuel Johnson's remark that "Questioning is not a mode of conversation among gentlemen," are as necessary to conversation as primers are to motors. Yet, as Francis Bacon in "Of Discourse" cautions the conversationalist, ". . . . let his questions not be troublesome." It is even more important to warn against their being tactless and indiscreet. Goldsmith in She Stoops to Conquer warns: "Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs." I doubt whether there is a person alive who has not squirmed under the impact of an indiscreet question which he did not know how to evade and which to answer violated his privacy or a confidence. Worse even, perhaps every one of us can remember at sometime having thoughtlessly asked such a question. People who are not scrupulously tactful in asking questions, both in what they ask and how they ask, do not belong in polite society. |
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