There Has to Be a Word



The last couple of days seem to be all about words. Reminding my yet again one needs to choose your words wisely. In a community post about an electrical outage I used fast instead of quick. Not the same thing. And as regards Pence's visit to the detention centers, his words, I use the words concentration camps. And that he had no sympathy - feelings of pity or sorrow, when he in fact had no empathy - the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

At the risk of sounding like a grammar Nazi words do matter. Take for instance the matter of Big Blue, the GMC pickup not starting. You get taken a lot seriously by a mechanic if you use the right words. The truck won't start is actually a symptom not the problem. It takes a key, the ignition, a battery, a starter, and a starter cable to start the GMC. It has a new battery and the starter is just a couple years old. But I have been having a starter cable issue or more specifically the connection of the starter cable to the starter issue. I did some YouTube research on this. Are you aware that the ignition can also stop reading your key? Always wise to have a key which is relatively new to eliminate this reason your older vehicle may not start.

This could all be in the realm of too much information. But the right words don't just help us communicate with the stranger on Facebook or our mental health professional or our mechanic. They help us internally to comprehend our position or situation. Take for instance sympathy vs empathy. I might want to talk longer with some seemingly uncaring individual if they lack sympathy. Could be I have not painted the right picture of the dire situation which merits their sympathy. But if they lack empathy it is a total waste of my time.

And sometimes it seems like splitting hairs. What is the meaningful difference between being a racist and just prone to racist pronouncements? For the person on the receiving end nothing. And it seems that a sexual abuse is rape if it occurs before the age of consent. Criminal sexual penetration not a requirement.

When I did freelance writing the age level of the vocabulary was important. The Associated Press guidelines were 12 years or 6th grade. Psychology Today is no doubt much higher.  The average American reads at a 9th grade level and mass market novels are written at a 7th grade level. Our president speaks and tweets at a 4th grade level.

To quote Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

Comments

  1. JesaJuly 16, 2019 at 10:29 AM

    Agreed! The right word is hugely important. Your definition of the difference between "sympathy" and "empathy" was quite helpful. I knew what it was but hadn't fully realized that it made the non-empath not worth trying to communicate with. I can see that it could be worth the effort, but only if we could convince them that it was to their own benefit to do something about the problems -- and I suspect that usually we cannot do that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LynJuly 17, 2019 at 7:09 AM

    Saw this on Jessica's page. Have not seen your writings in many months. Just clicked on the "follow" link.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TomlinJuly 17, 2019 at 7:39 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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