The problem with the written word

Communication…. The one thing that mankind has developed to a high degree enabling us to advance above our mammalian cousins and change the world that we inhabit.

Total communication between different parties is a complex thing, one which uses many different prompts and aids.

For example
“it was this big”

Written by itself means absolutely nothing to the receiver of the communication, but

If being described face to face and arm and hands movements are used, (especially by a visually exciting person) the message will be much easier to convey.

Herein lays the problem of all internet forums, we are limited to 10% of the standard message in comparison to face to face or the like, if I call you a “silly Bugger” face to face with a grin, you could reasonably assume (and be correct) that I am using it as a term of endearment, but if I wrote it down without emoticons on a forum thread, depending on your mood or personality, we may have a problem.

When we try to communicate we are trying to paint a picture for the receiver to see, words alone can be used to do this, but it takes a skilful and adept author to accurately convey this message to all of his audience, and lets face it, if one was that good, one would be writing for a living (come in Michael D). herein lays the next issue, not all of us are comfortable with conveying our thoughts and experiences using the written word, many of us maybe were not that great scholars and even less practiced at comprehension.

Often words with the same identical spelling are made into words with totally different meanings by the use of little pieces of punctuation that changes the word entirely. But the meaning remains the same from person to person. Now if you take a language that relies on tone, inflection and emphasis for much of its meaning and remove the auditory and visual aspects, you are left with having to insert these on your own in order to apply a meaning to the word or sentence.

Therein lies the problem that leads to so much miscommunication and misunderstanding in the written word. This leads to “I read what it said, therefore it said what I read”. But is what you read, what the writer said? When anyone writes, they insert these inflections into their words while writing, either consciously or subconsciously, but we all do it. The problem lies in the fact that these inflections do not carry over to the reader. These inflections are then re-inserted by the reader based on how they interpret what they read and how they have applied the words in their own life and when we do not apply the same inflections and meanings as the writer used, all to often confusion or misunderstandings occur.

On another forum I am a member of one contributor stood out from the others, not in his expertise, not in his knowledge, but in his style and ability to paint that message into a mental picture worthy of Rembrandt, after several months and some detective work, I and several others realised who he was behind the keyboard, a very well known and often published author, who had written my favourite motorcycling piece ever “Harry and Me” which is a beaut piece of fiction that parallels the joy of motorcycling and mateship. As it stands he is one in 22 million, the rest of us are not.
Remember this factual truism of all humans – “Perception is reality, and from my reality I shall not be swayed”. All too often, this is what results from “I read what it said, therefore it said what I read”.

So when we are exchanging ideas through the written word it is important for all parties to remember a poorly chosen word may be just that, a misquote may be just a result of poor judgement, look at the whole message don’t just focus on one word or one paragraph, what is the author trying to say, what is he trying to deduce?
If perchance you do find yourself in objection to the statement, take 5 and think about the person behind the message and if necessary formulate a response that is worthy and not personified, don’t attack the person, rather have a civilised response and maybe you’ll find that you were both arguing the same point.

😆 :blush:

Yours Truly