The essence of the question

11/15/2013

Posted by Jon
The speaker of the UK House of Commons gave a witheringly sarcastic put-down to prime minister David Cameron last week:

“It’s a good idea to try to remember the essence of the question that was put.”

We could apply this to proposals, of course – not only answer the question (’compliant’) but address its essence (’responsive’). When speaker Bercow gets kicked out of office, he might think of proposal management as a second career… and in the meantime, I can see myself quoting him to various recalcitrant content contributors!

3 Comments

Ruth Turman

3/25/2016 02:50:26 pm

To which I would add a snippet I myself spouted in a rare display of wisdom back in my university days:

“One man’s opinion – no matter how entitled he may be to it – does not constitute fact; nor does it make a very good generalization.”

As always, you guys are timely and right on the mark (are you SURE you’re not secretly working somewhere in my organization?). It to anticipate quoting your speaker of the UK House of Commons.

Ruth Turman

3/25/2016 02:50:37 pm

Obviously I wasn’t “reading” English at university. That last sentence should have read “I, too, anticipate…” NOT “It to anticipate ….”

If God had wanted architecture students to be grammatically correct he would have made us all English majors.

In my defense, that was a typographical error, not one of grammar.

Jon

3/25/2016 02:50:50 pm

Ruth – I usually just blame the auto-correct on my BlackBerry for any such errors!

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BJ Lownie and Jon Williams are the co-founders of Strategic Proposals.

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