Elicit — A Vocabulary Story
The silence strategy
Nadia's little brother Asif had superglued his mouth shut.
Well, not literally. But he might as well have done, because he absolutely refused to speak to their gran on the phone.
"Come on," Nadia pleaded, waving the mobile at him. "Just say hello. She's called from Pakistan specially."
Asif folded his arms and stared at the ceiling.
"She sent you that enormous box of sweets last month!"
Nothing. Asif examined his fingernails with intense concentration.
"She's asking about your football trophy!"
Asif hummed loudly and started reorganising the bookshelf.
Nadia flopped onto the sofa. How was she supposed to elicit a response from him?
Elicit means to draw out a response, answer, or reaction from someone.
When had Asif turned into a stubborn statue?
Then she had a brilliant idea.
"Oh well," she said loudly into the phone, "I'll just tell Gran that you've decided to support Manchester United now instead of—"
"WHAT?!" Asif spun around, horrified. "I would NEVER! Gran, I'm still supporting Liverpool! Nadia's lying!"
He snatched the phone from her hand.
"Yes, Gran, it's me. No, I haven't switched teams. Yes, I know you sent me the Liverpool scarf. I wear it every weekend! What? No, Nadia doesn't know anything about football. She thought the Premier League was a furniture shop..."
Nadia grinned as Asif launched into an enthusiastic fifteen-minute conversation about last Saturday's match, his tournament trophy, and his new boots.
When he finally hung up, he glared at her. "That was sneaky."
"That was genius," Nadia corrected. "You can ignore someone asking you to talk. But you can't ignore someone being wrong about football."
Their mum appeared in the doorway. "How did you elicit such a long conversation from him? I've been trying all week."
"Easy," said Nadia. "I just discovered that the fastest way to elicit words from Asif is to say something completely wrong about Liverpool."
Asif tried to look annoyed but couldn't quite manage it. "Gran says you're her favourite grandchild now."
"Obviously. I'm the one who actually rings her back."
"Yeah, but I'm the one with the trophy."
"That she'll never see if you keep ignoring her calls!"
Asif picked up the phone. "Fine. I'll video call her tomorrow and show her."
Nadia smiled. Sometimes you had to be creative.
Word Definition
elicit
meaning
To draw out a response, answer, or reaction from someone.
synonyms
evoke · extract · bring out · inspire · wrest
antonyms
ignore · miss · overlook
example sentence
The teacher's question was designed to elicit thoughtful responses.