Eagar three-thousand-spot-welds rhetorical figure

Tom's own 1989 Gatlinburg keynote where he coined "they put three thousand spot welds in the average automobile because you need two thousand good ones." Recurring rhetorical anchor in his teaching.

That was a great turning point in my career. I used to go to conferences and talk about technical details and what I'd been doing research on — a couple of differential equations to impress everybody. After that I decided, just think of the right way to say it. In 1989 I had to give a keynote talk on resistance spot welding at the welding conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I got up to give this keynote and I said: they put three thousand spot welds in the average automobile because you need two thousand good ones. That's something people will remember. A year later I was at a welding conference at a cocktail party, and right behind me I heard someone say, "you know they put three thousand spot welds in an average automobile because you need two thousand good ones." It's not what you say, it's how you say it.