22 January 2010

Turns Of Phrase

The first place I heard this was on an episode of Babylon 5; and I don't think it originated there.

"If you cannot say what you mean, you cannot mean what you say."

No matter if you are forbidden or just inarticulate.

Some things require precision and language is no exception. When what you mean matters, you must be precise in what you say. If you are not, you will be misunderstood. These misunderstanding can, and have, gotten people's lives ruined and sometimes even killed.

It is also interesting that the bluntest way of saying something is also often the most precise. Be wary of people being overly verbose. If it takes them a paragraph to say what a sentence can express, they are not expressing what that sentence would say.

Never, ever, trust someone who drafts language that greatly affects others lives who is imprecise and sloppy with their language when it does not matter.

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