Friday, October 07, 2005

It sounds like they’re speaking English…

…but no communication is happening.

Sometimes when people start talking, you listen with half a mind, and you think how brilliant they are, as you catch a word or phrase here and there; “juxtaposition,” “I’d like to modify that with…” and so on. But then when you actually hear it in context, and listen to what they are actually saying, you realize that it does not make any sense in the setting, or that the ideas the person is trying to express could be so much more clearly expressed in a quarter of the words.

It reminds me of Anne of Green Gables when she is more grown up, one of her old friends asks her why she doesn’t use big words anymore. She says that she can express her thoughts more clearly without them, that she doesn’t feel she needs them to get her thoughts across. Now that she is old enough for people to take seriously she doesn’t have to impress them with big words.

Isn’t life ironic?

--Kyte

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