Questions, questions

Most people know that there are open questions and closed questions.  Closed questions generally are those that attract a yes or no answer.  Can I, Do you, Would you, Have you, Shall we and so on – too many to list.  But did you know there are only seven words that start open questions?

Six start with a ‘W’ and one with an ‘H’.  Here they are: Who What Where When Why How Which. 

What do they do for us?  Well they allow us to get a lot of information quickly.  For example I could ask you: ‘WHAT are you up to today, then?’ and when you answer I’ll have all the information you’re ready to give to me.  But what if I’d asked a closed question instead?  ‘Are you going shopping today?’.  You might have said ‘No’.  Then I need to ask you another question: ‘Are you going swimming?  No. Ice skating? No. Mountain climbing? No. To work? No.’ and so on and so on until I run out of imagination or ideas!  And it sounds a bit daft to even think of finding out that kind of information using closed questions.  But that’s exactly the habit that so many of us form.  Why do we do it?  Often because we’re pretty clever or pretty experienced or very very busy.  Our brains are really really clever and what we’ve done is to have already taken a guess at the answer to our question!  What you are up to today then?  And in my head I’m already saying to myself ‘I expect she’s going shopping and then going to have a swim’ so I’m actually not really listening to what you have to say at all.  I’m only listening to hear confirmation of my own thoughts and ideas.  Sorry.

Alfred Brendel reminds us that "The word 'listen' contains the same letters as the word 'silent'."

And it would be really easy for us to presume that he simply means not to talk while we are listening.  But today, instead I’m going to invite you to interpret his words slightly differently.  Today, after you have asked someone a question, listen – really listen to their answer.  Keep your mind silent as well as your mouth!