I occasionally love the English language and the way phrases develop. Having grown up thinking that a 'rhetorical question' precisely means one that requires no answer, I was shocked to discover today that the meaning is entirely different to that.

The meaning of rhetorical is stated as "Of or relating to rhetoric.". The word rhetoric in turn means "Skill in using language effectively and persuasively."

So the meaning of a rhetorical question is simply one that has been communicated so effectively and persuasively that it requires no reply. There is no direct meaning which states no answer is required to the question, people have created this implied meaning over time.

There are so many words in the English language. The world renowned Oxford English dictionary contains some 616,500 word forms. Those definitions do not include proper names, scientific and technical terms or jargon (including these would dramatically increase the rate at which our rainforests are declining since there are over 1.4 million named species of insect). All in all, estimates of the number of words in English are around three million words or above.

An educated person (those that are aged 18 and above - since everyone else in my experience of living in Southampton and working in Stevenage has taught me anyone under that age is either a) thick as shit or b) an irresponsible teenage single-mother of 4) typically knows about 20,000 words of the 200,000 that are in common use and uses about 2,000 unique words in a week.

Hopefully having taught you the true meaning of rhetorical you're further on your way to the 20,000 target.