Say what?

Verbosity is a grand thing in my mind because it just may increase the chance of clarity. I recently had the opportunity, perhaps even benefit, of watching a series of e-mail exchanges erupt into quite a state of vitriol that has left me wondering why and how it happened.

A typed and sent post lead to a series of misunderstandings that escalated each time an explanation was sought and then given. In the beginning, there was no intentional animosity in those posts. However, as they continued to be passed back and forth, anger grew and tempers flared. In general and in hindsight, the words were quite OK for what they said. Presentation presented the problem.

I look at historical letters and often think "I wish I could write like that". Napoleon to Josephine, John to Abigail, statesman to statesman. These were skilled letter writers.

E-mail and text messaging has brought us to the brink of truncated thoughts. In this too-much-to-do and no-time-to-get-things-done world, it seems we may have reduced our communications to little tiny, chopped off thoughts and I wish this weren't so. Facebook is very good for this type of communication, but an e-mail post should be clear with no ambiguity.

I still have letters, yep, actual letters written to me by a friend in the service of our country 25-28-30 years ago. I treasure these artifacts not just as missives from a friend in another land, but as an example of a time, even in my own lifetime when personal communication was much
more clear.

Given the conversational nature of our e-mails and other electronic communiques, it's easy to lose track of emotion when one line makes more sense to the sender than it might to the reader(s). Sitting at the same table, that same utterance could work just fine with all the other communication skills we possess. Abbreviated words and, in particular, thoughts have taken over, it seems.

Hell, someone, sensing this problem, invented emoticons - someone perhaps who understood communication skills were being abandoned for shortened thoughts and shorter words. Or they were invented by someone so lazy, they couldn't be bothered to write a complete thought. In any
event, could you just see Napoleon professing his love for Josephine with smiley-face emoticons wrapped in a heart? What a historical document that would have been!

In other words, use words. Lots of them, but not too many. One of the reasons Abraham Lincoln was such a successful speaker was his very careful editing skills. He always knew who he was speaking to and he edited two words to one wherever possible. His speeches reached the uneducated and at the same time did not speak down to the more educated.

I could go on, but I won't.