5 Rhetorical Symptoms of Right-itis

Momma in Her Midlife Hates Know-It-Alls

Cat image by Image by Sandy Müller

You may have noticed that, when you communicate with others, they sometimes counter your statements with little corrections, changes, points of dissent, or additional detail. We all do this to some degree. And you may have noticed that these affectations could be seen as the person asserting their “correctness” or “rightness.” This is a phenomenon I’ve come to informally call right-itis. Let’s explore that a little bit and answer the questions of what it is and how to recognize it.

I think of right-itis as the need that someone must feel “right” about everything with a tendency toward verbal “corrections.” The first part of this, the need to feel like you are right, is an insecurity that most of us have about feeling a sort of psychological safety. I’ll explore that part in another article.

In this article, let’s focus on the verbal corrections portion. This right-itis thing falls under the category of, “I know it when I see it.” So, let’s explore this through some examples.

Example 1 — Adding Precision

This first one often takes this form:

1. Person A: “The price of that widget is about $300.”
2. Person B: “No, actually it’s $299.95.”