The Mechanics and Rhetoric of Conversation : Page 59

No generalizer can be a good conversationalist. A person who habitually talks in such terms as, "They live in a very large house," "That's a very expensive restaurant," "Mother's back yard is full of flowers," is a generalizer. He will not be very interesting, and if he talks much he will be flat or tiresome. But if he says, "They live in a nine-room, three-story house," "The cheapest dinner in Holway's restaurant is $3.00," "Mother's back yard has fifteen varieties of flowers, from asters to snapdragons," he is a specifier. He then talks like one who has been there, like one who knows. He therefore talks like one with authority. We learn something from him. He is interesting. People noticed and said of our Lord that He talked as one with authority. That wasn't only because Jesus was God. Even God in talking to man has to follow the principles of rhetoric to be interesting, and Jesus did. When He wanted to convince people that a kindly Providence sees everything, He cites the "lilies of the field" as growing without toiling or spinning. Another time, declaring that "any sound tree will bear good fruit," He asks specifically, "Can grapes be plucked from briers, or figs from thistles?" Again, urging His hearers to "lay up treasure for yourselves in heaven," He does not generalize heaven as a safe and secure place but as one "where there is no moth or rust to consume it" (Matt. 6 and 7).