Personality Adjustment for Conversation : Page 171

You should avoid asking anyone fact, quiz, or achievement questions, to which he may have to acknowledge ignorance. Bacon rightly said that if you address a question to someone skilled to answer it, you will give him "occasion to please" himself in speaking. But only teachers in classrooms have the sour privilege of directing questions to victims who are likely not to know the answers! Even such common questions as whether one knows or has read a certain book, or whether one knows such and such a person in some institution or locality produce a slight frustration and humiliation if one has to reply in the negative. The proper technique is to name the book or the person invitingly. If you say, "So you studied at Marquette! A friend of mine, Dr. Archer, teaches English there," your companion will naturally say, "Oh, yes, I know him," or he can gracefully evade the suggestion, if he doesn't know