With the language of certitude, a writer hopes to build a sense of absolute certainty and confidence within a reader's mind. That sense of confidence can then be exploited by making the reader believe something is true when in fact the writer has presented no evidence in favor of the claim. It was, needless to say, hard work, but I learned a lot there about people, and work, and life, and dreams. S ince it was my first venture through the warehouse, I was amazed at how effortlessly the forklift operators could navigate through tight passageways and pull down pallets loaded with hundreds of pounds of paperboard from shelves twenty feet or more in the air. And he was right.
Appearances do count.
If I looked like I was busy, the foreman would think I was busy. That is the core principle of the language of certitude. If you sound certain enough, if the tone of your writing is confident and absolute, then you have a good chance to persuade some people without having to give them evidence or reason. The language of certitude is deception akin to the magician's sleight of hand. We might called it, then, sleight of tongue.