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New But this one was very clear
AND interesting.

Maybe your vocabulary is so much larger than mine my eyes glaze over.

Sometimes when people use a word I don't understand I look it up, or pretend to understand it in context. But because SO MANY of your words are new to me, I can't do the context and to look up makes me think of the old days learing hebrew, looking up a word at a time, and I run away.

On the other hand, when I am writing for an audience (any audience), I tend to rework my writing to remove what may be considered complex words, simplifying phrases, etc.

You seem to do the opposite.

I was having an interesting (to me) thought this morning. I speak in clipped phrases, yes/no, short answers, quick questions, etc. But I always attempt to keep in mind clarity, and always add more if it seems it is needed.

I then realized.

I both speak and write as if I was programming.

As much as is needed to convey the concept, no more.

And then I realized that when people went into long winded explantions of things it really annoys me. I reviewed recent interactions with a variety of people, and was able to determine that whenever I thought we were in agreement of something, they continued to explain their point.

Wife, kids, coworkers, everyone does it.

Why?

New As I've often said...
When programmers communicate, they tend to be both precise and ineffective.

What is said is precise and sufficient. But since very few listeners will analyze what is said carefully enough, they fail of the goal of actually communicating.

The extra long-windedness that others have are like a series of checksums in a communication channel that is assumed to be very lossy. When dealing with non-programmers, their assumption tends to be correct.

Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New Disagree
At least for myself.

I tend to reflect back what someone said in detail to ensure we both understand someting the same way.

But long winded speeches merely obscure the meaning and give people escape hatches to deny a specific interpretation. These people are not trying to communicate, they are merely enjoying the sound of their own voice.
New I think we just demonstrated the "lossy" part. :-)
I said that when trying to communicate with non-programmers, their assumption tends to be correct. You are a programmer, and hence do not serve as an example either way on that assertion.

You point out that often people are talking for purposes other than communication. I agree, but consider that tangential to the question of why people are long-winded when they are obviously trying to communicate.

And a final point of irony. Being long-winded only works in some contexts. For instance those who deal with journalists learn to avoid long-winded answers. Journalists are masters of taking snippets of an answer out of context and using it to portray the illusion of an intent to communicate where there was none. And journalists will not bother repeating anything that they think will lose their audience. You don't own a TV station of a newspaper. You will never get to explain yourself once you've been misunderstood.

Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New Experiences language teachers know it, too.
Though they don't think of it in the same way. My Japanese teacher pointed out several times that we shouldn't worry about understanding every word - many can be figured out from context or even completely ignored.

Wade.
d-_-b
New Why are we who we are?
We usually speak as who we are, per our personality.

This is something that's become more and more evident as I wrestle with the dilemmna of my SIL.

See, she's an abrupt, to the point, straight shooting person, and hence she speaks like that. It matches her personality.

Ex: Brenda: please do such and such, thanks.

Me for example, I would write, "Brenda, would you please do this for me? I would appreciate it, thanks."

Difference is in the abrupt and relaxed styles. If you tend to be laid back, you are writing/speaking in a relaxed manner. If you tend to be abrupt, you clip off your sentences and write/speak in the same manner. Programmers are a good example, mathematicians, another.

I would suspect that Ashton speaks in a thoughtful, complex manner, because he has a thoughtful complex personality. I would suspect that Box talks in a rushed, run together manner, that is somewhat haphazard, because he has a personality where he feels like he's rushing, or hurrying to present things, not necessarily an impatient one, but more like an eager one. He's eager to present his views.

I would have to truly examine others styles to have any idea whether my theory is correct, but so far in many, it's matched. Ross for example, he had a negative, sarcastic and abrasive manner many times in his posts, and he seemed to be a negative personality to boot.

So in a sense, our speaking/writing style reflects who and what we are.

That's my take on it, anyway.

Brenda




"Excel is to math what a Microwave Oven is to cooking!"
New You are way off about Box
Calm, slow, detailed speaker.

New As I said
I could be wrong, and I admit that.

But a lot of people do mirror their personality in their speaking and/or writing methods. There's always the exceptions, of course.

Brenda



"Excel is to math what a Microwave Oven is to cooking!"
New Gosh.. I'll have to revise, then
We come from different backgrounds and assumptions (maybe even about the Why's of adjectives and adverbs - and the need to have an attention span which can bear them all in mind?) I also predate the boomers and their 'entrepreneurial' nonethic: Rape of lesser-brained ones is OK, in My pursuit of Mine. Politics/language - inextricable, often.

My path crosses (most here) in that I have as much experience with complex techno as anyone else here; it's not the same sort exactly - but then physics Rulez everything you do that needs a machine, as much as it does an accelerator complex or a hydraulic pump.

Yes, I'd thought ~something like that about your talents. And about the programming model. Few are as self-aware of their own methodology as you; I'd deem that more of a blessing than a curse - but you'd have to look at the word, 'efficiency', I wot: if that figures large in "why I choose this?", well - if IWE were a Wikipedia and that's All it were: (___)

That facility + the fact of your actually Knowing IT-stuff down to most Gotcha-levels (not shitting self and bystanders, like say, some grads of one of those MCSx diploma mills?)
is why your hilarious, simultaneously stark
"Instructions to the PFY"
scans, at least to me: As Technical Art.

You didn't waste a syllable, but then the material did not need many adjectives, adverbs -- the usual stuff of speech, when it's about homo-saps and our crazy mixed-up sets of brains (intellect, emotion, instinct etc.)
No extra modifiers would have added anything (though perhaps just One.. subtly humorous in-quip? might have raised it to Masterpiece level.)

But a fair self-assessment deserves a response in kind.
I'll even format for your short-line preference
(an idea I don't find 'silly' BTW - merely,
like my 'style': unconventional.)

I am not you, to coin a phrase. ;-)
At some nebulous point I had to ~choose: 'Art'? (ie music) or 'Science'?
(ie go with a facility for right answers to simple techno stuff,
as methodical people so Love to test for).

I knew I couldn't hack it as a prof. musician
(details, reasons wouldn't be a very good story).

Thus I took the easy-way, until it finally dawned on me what daily-doing 'Science' is like.
I was fortunate to find the exact-Right niche for one such as I;
that was not on the frontiers of Theoretical- anything,
(except for a few forays -- everyone gets to be a Hero for 15 min.)

Of course, most here are not 'doing science' either -
are applying tools and lore to problem-solving, not invention or conceptualization.
No theoreticians here now ; no Ross.
(No idea what Ben does after 'work' - I hasten to add.)

Vocabulary
First, I think many science students today would be surprised
(and need that dictionary) to read the Giants.
Most of those were educated == wealthy, and that meant Actually Educated,
as in Rigorously.
as in 'liberal arts' not just F=MA.
Who else could afford the time, \ufffd\ufffd\ufffd for experiments?

I graduated HS early.
To read the stuff I wanted to read I had to understand words:
their words, not my kid-speak or market-speak.
And especially-Not the then primitive marketing-speak
(And you Can start a sentence with 'And').
Needed words.. even to read a book on Alchemy,
when written by someone who knew Cato from catatonic.

However one does form speech habits, I have had to no-less simplify from what I knew to be the nuance I intended, just as you - though rarely in academe.
I also realized early-on the Fact of Murican society being notoriously anti-'intellectual'
(by which most people really mean: all that trouble! to really Think, explore!
about the difference between simple and a nice glib simplistic 'answer'.)

Picking a $64 word when a simpler one is very-close - we know what that's called. But surrendering a $64 word for 20 others, that don't quite capture it -
that's another.
(Pecksniff! beats Asshole! in a walk, for bearing down on the underlying source of one's discontent with an er, Asshole - no?)

{All the more fun - if the pecksniff has to Look It Up, I say.}

Finally, I 'joined' this motley group as did most - via creeping gradualism.
And if all that finally proved topical [in the various 'here's] had come to
~~ pip B:=A:*.*/V ? we wouldn't be having this conversation.

If I had to 'defend' my 'style', I might observe that,
my experience teaches that - all original mental activity is Associative,
in any mode that is seeking "the New" == because that IS the only "way we Tell".
(And yes, in full snake-concentration mode re a particular problem unravelling -- one is Not seeking The New, but merely a solution to That Puzzle.)

Digression -
Besides, these categories suck, anyway: there's Science in Music & vice versa.
(Ever read any of Hofstadter's epistles?
See the Sci. Am. article re a Chopin etude score: as visual art?)

A Bach fugue.. there's at least one which keeps ascending into new keys.
It never Resolves! [OK - trans into Barry-speak:]

Stoned on some Sinsemilla of a grade most only ever hear about
+ some Bushmills, other powdery aids
-- two of us were listening to That fugue.

Slurred a bit, Martin said..
y'know, I think we're.. hearing.. Bach's comprehension of ... ... infinity...
(Can add nothing to that.)


(I can talk techno-shop too, re 'accelerators', bizarre involute Gotchas in lectronic circuits - with as much economy of the superfluous as you're describing. But I don't call that 'speech' or human communication - it's really just filling-in a logic table for someone else to see: an ELSE or an IF THEN which one has too glibly passed over..)

Hope this adds something to the mix;
it would be Dull City if everyone talked like Accountants.
If something is actually There, and it takes some mental 'associations?'
to put it out / to get to it..
some will try sometimes; others, never. Most wrote to find out what they Knew, not 'knew'.
(We live in an in-between world there, too ;-)

*Experimentation* is a concept that appiles to all forms of 'communication' TOO;
not just to making better Tazers or SAM missiles. Or fixing fucking IE.
(We've already had Studs T's clarification of how that meaning
differs from 'communications' - No?)

Lastly: whenever anyone means to publish anything for Real -
doing so without a good editor [person! !-Vi] is really Dumb.


Cheers,
I

New Thanks
     The worst natural disaster in US history - (Silverlock) - (74)
         I agree completely - (Nightowl)
         compared to the galveston hurricane or the okeechobee - (boxley) - (30)
             You probably have something to say I'd be interested in - (Silverlock) - (29)
                 feel free to not read me in my posts :-) -NT - (boxley) - (28)
                     I try - (Silverlock) - (27)
                         Come on man, if he did that . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (26)
                             I agree - (Nightowl)
                             I'd rather have the anchovy. -NT - (Silverlock)
                             So what is the correct term, Ashtonese or Ashlish? - (jb4) - (5)
                                 Bafflegarblish -NT - (broomberg)
                                 Dupe - ignore. -NT - (Nightowl)
                                 Ashtonish? - (Nightowl)
                                 Ashtonese. - (inthane-chan) - (1)
                                     I'd have to agree. - (Nightowl)
                             If I started writing in plain-vanilla instruction-manual - (Ashton) - (17)
                                 Like I said elsewhere - (Nightowl)
                                 But this one was very clear - (broomberg) - (9)
                                     As I've often said... - (ben_tilly) - (3)
                                         Disagree - (broomberg) - (2)
                                             I think we just demonstrated the "lossy" part. :-) - (ben_tilly) - (1)
                                                 Experiences language teachers know it, too. - (static)
                                     Why are we who we are? - (Nightowl) - (2)
                                         You are way off about Box - (broomberg) - (1)
                                             As I said - (Nightowl)
                                     Gosh.. I'll have to revise, then - (Ashton) - (1)
                                         Thanks -NT - (broomberg)
                                 It depends on what you're trying to achieve. - (pwhysall) - (5)
                                     I Am Not a Number - (Ashton)
                                     Ashton's a playwright. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                                         And sometimes he's like this . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (1)
                                             Exactly right, Andrew - (jb4)
                                         Damn, Scott -- - (Ashton)
         I still think this is over-reacting. - (folkert) - (41)
             oil and petrochemical is the main deal, has been for a while - (boxley) - (1)
                 Yep - one wonders if this will be the spark - (tuberculosis)
             Read this. - (inthane-chan) - (18)
                 thin blue line erased in New Orleans, lord of the flies time -NT - (boxley) - (17)
                     All the smart people... - (ChrisR) - (16)
                         .. are destitute or invalids or hospitalized or ... :-( -NT - (Another Scott) - (7)
                             Desperate times... - (ChrisR) - (6)
                                 I'm wondering if this event might not set off some - (jake123) - (5)
                                     Not a chance - (hnick)
                                     Didn't in Los Angeles -NT - (Andrew Grygus)
                                     Third world country - (ChrisR)
                                     Naaah - (tuberculosis)
                                     Whatever else this massive boondoggle is explained-away with - (Ashton)
                         Are the poor who lack the resources to move - (tuberculosis) - (7)
                             no resources or will to evacuate and the last time people - (boxley) - (1)
                                 Yep - another article - (tuberculosis)
                             Re: Are the poor who lack the resources to move - (Nightowl) - (4)
                                 On the Titanic it was women and children first - (GBert) - (3)
                                     True, and that makes it worse yet - (Nightowl) - (2)
                                         Astute observation, O feathered One. -NT - (Ashton)
                                         Gives you pause don't it? - (GBert)
             Hey there, driver man... - (danreck) - (19)
                 Believe me, you have my compassion - (Nightowl) - (18)
                     What I can't understand... - (danreck) - (17)
                         It's only the poor. - (inthane-chan)
                         The National Guard is committed to helping - (tuberculosis) - (5)
                             Re: The National Guard is committed to helping - (altmann) - (4)
                                 21k NG troops allocated now by the feds (they pay em) - (boxley)
                                 Wow, really? - (drewk) - (2)
                                     The bigger problem might be the equipment anyways - (altmann) - (1)
                                         Heard in passing on NPR - yep. - (inthane-chan)
                         My opinion - (Nightowl)
                         That requires planning and forethought - (jake123) - (8)
                             I think this is a good time - (danreck) - (7)
                                 I'll tell my cousin-in-law that - (Nightowl) - (5)
                                     Re: I'll tell my cousin-in-law that - (danreck) - (4)
                                         I hope you get to help - (Nightowl) - (1)
                                             Supplies and volunteers - (Nightowl)
                                         Why don't you an mmoffit fly over and drop water bottles? -NT - (tuberculosis) - (1)
                                             I've got oil pressure problems at the moment. :0( -NT - (mmoffitt)
                                 I'm not talking about the fact that the levees failed - (jake123)

The concept of a power-up hadn't been invented yet.
82 ms