It is the speaker's responsibility to make them self understood, not the listener's responsibility to try to figure out what the speaker meant when they didn't say what they meant. It's really difficult to talk to people who think words mean whatever they want them to mean...

+46 It is the speaker's responsibility to make them self understood, not the listener's responsibility to try to figure out what the speaker meant when they didn't say what they meant. It's really difficult to talk to people who think words mean whatever they want them to mean and get annoyed when you don't understand them. If you want people to understand you, you're going to have to learn how to express yourself better, it's not their job to be mind readers, amirite?

by Anonymous 10 years ago

Anytime I tell someone "words have specific meaning and convey specific thought, if you say something in a way that doesn't convey that thought, they're not going to understand you." They always go "words don't have specific meaning, I can use them to mean what I want and interpretation is up to the reader." Next time, I'm just gonna go "Purple banana hot sauce in the pea soup coming out your butt burns. Words mean whatever I want, interpret it as you will, so let's try having a conversation like that."

by Anonymous 10 years ago

I think you just wrote a Captain Beefheart song.

by Anonymous 10 years ago

Interesting post. I know what you're talking about. I worked with this guy who would try to explain these very detailed technical issues using only pronouns. So you take this thing... and you go over there.

by Anonymous 10 years ago

Kind of reminds me of this Cracked article I was reading about tech support having to help people who have no idea what the hell is wrong with their stuff. "My computer is broken." "What is it doing?" "That's the problem, it won't do things, it's broke." "Can you tell me what you're trying to do that it won't do?" "I try to use the browser to click on the browser and open it but it won't open." "Sir, let's pick one thing to call the browser and go from there." "Ok, so the browser isn't wanting to open up the button that opens the browser- shit, I'm doing it again aren't I?"

by Anonymous 10 years ago

I hate when people say things along the lines of "I'm responsible for what I say, not for what you think I mean." If a you're going to get mad when people make false assumptions or infer what you said in a certain way, make your writing clear.

by Anonymous 10 years ago

Yeah, sure. But I think it's also the listener's job to understand what the speaker means rather than assume false misinterpretations.

by Anonymous 10 years ago

This also applies to books and movies, I think. Although sometimes it's interesting to be confused during a movie/book, the issue needs to be resolved by the end. It pisses me off when writers try to be "provocative" by confusing their audience.

by Anonymous 10 years ago

I agree. It's irritating and the book doesn't get any better because of it.

by Anonymous 10 years ago