Thank you for Arguing, by Jay Heinrichs

Whether you sense it or not, argument surrounds you. It plays with your emotions, changes your attitude, talks you into a decision, and goads you to buy things. Argument lies behind political labeling, advertising, jargon, voices, gestures, and guilt trips; it forms a real-life Matrix, the supreme software that drives our social lives. And rhetoric serves as argument’s decoder. By teaching the tricks we use to persuade one another, the art of persuasion reveals the Matrix in all its manipulative glory.

I came across some reviews of this book in Twitter. Having a linguistic background myself, I am interested in the use of language as a tool for something different to mere communication. I remember a Liguistics teacher at university who told us Rhetoric was despised and underrated, but could be very interesting to a philologist. It does combine an insight into how language works and the practical use of figures of speech which we typically associate with Literature.

So, the subject was attractive. Then comes style. It is really well written. It's fun, it is witty, and it is very easy to identify with. It's crammed with daily life examples, and contexts to which you can apply the concepts you learn about in the book. It is also rather practical for identifying attempts of manipulation.

The author himself is also a good reason to approach the text. He tells us about his experiences in using rhetoric at home, and sprinkles parenting and marital dos and don'ts. Tips for professional development are not scarce either. We can trust he's basing his advice on solid knowledge, which spans from the classics to state-of-the-art market research.

There is a Spanish translation in the works —the author himself kindly confirmed it.

Polyhymnia , Muse of eloquence (among other things). Unkonwn author - Jastrow (2006), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1308649