<i>However, the best way Howard gets the truth out of his guests is by lying directly to them about a specific piece of their life. By telling them a lie about themselves, the very first reaction they have is to correct it and by doing so, they give the answer he’s searching for.</i><p>This is very useful Usenet+ trick to get an answer to a question. You could be nice and simply ask a question: "How can I do X in Y?" and you might get an answer. Maybe.<p>Or you could simply assert, "It is impossible to do X in Y", and get a flood of replies because, well, xkcd 386 should cover it.<p><a href="http://xkcd.com/386/" rel="nofollow">http://xkcd.com/386/</a><p>edit: It occurred to me that there may be a practical way to spin this when getting software requirements. For example, you could simply ask, "Is <some quality or feature or behavior> important?" Ir you could phrase it as an assertion: "OK, so I'm assuming that <some quality or feature or behavior> is not important." Or some variation.<p>I wonder if that difference in phrasing leads to getting better details. That is, in what way does how you phrase something (question or assertion, positive or negative) push a response in one direction or another?