Clean Language Questions

Definition

Clean Language questions are a fixed set of twelve question forms — such as "(And) what kind of X (is that X)?" and "(And) is there anything else about X?" — where X is always replaced by the speaker's own exact words, never a paraphrase. Because the questions themselves are stripped of nearly all assumptions and metaphors, they let a speaker elaborate on their own experience without the questioner's worldview leaking into the answer.

In the Book

Chapter 1 introduces the two most versatile questions — "what kind of X?" and "is there anything else about X?" — through the story of a mother asking her daughter Jenny about a drawing, and a chair asking a sales director "What kind of breaking point is that?" only to discover he meant breaking through, not breaking down. Chapter 2 contrasts Clean questions with open and closed questions: closed questions force yes/no, open questions invite elaboration, but Clean questions are "ultra-Open" because they add almost no content of their own. The book stresses "don't paraphrase — parrot-phrase": using the speaker's exact words, not a rewording, is what keeps a question clean.

Why It Matters

Most questions smuggle in the questioner's assumptions, categories, and metaphors, which quietly steers the answer toward what the questioner already expected to hear. A question format engineered to carry almost no content of its own — just a slot for the other party's own words — lets you find out what someone actually means before you act on what you assumed they meant. That distinction is exportable anywhere information has to cross from one mind (or one system) into another without distortion: requirements gathering, research interviews, diagnosis, negotiation.