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I'm not sure this kind of yes-anding makes the speaker appear smart. Isn't the purpose of yes-and to help ego to undercut alter's frame-setting through one-upm
by mafribe 11y ago
I'm not sure this kind of yes-anding makes the speaker appear smart.
Isn't the purpose of yes-and to help ego to undercut alter's frame-setting through one-upmanhip? And isn't the purpose of the comic effect to divert the audience's attention away from alter's point, because because for some reason ego don't want that point to be discussed further?
To be sure, all of this can be effective in a jocular, conversational social setting, especially when the audience is not yet primed to detecting yes-anding, but I doubt it imparts the impression of intellectual superiority upon the listeners.
- mindcrime 11y agoYeah, it probably is particularly effective in a more jocular setting... but let me add that I'm not proposing to, in a non improv show setting, literally "yes and" everything somebody says. I'm just saying that the general principle of "agree, then add" is a useful tool in conversation, to avoid conflict, which can derail the conversation. It isn't necessarily so much about "sounding smart" (which, in my mind, is not the real point anyway) but rather about controlling and guiding the conversation in such a way as to accomplish your end (whatever that may be). If you go and take improv training, you have to be prepared to generalize from it and extract the useful principles, before applying them in other settings. Otherwise, you might wind up telling your boss that the reason the site is down is because a stealthy group of ninjas in pink tutus, riding elephants, stole the Postgres database!