A Few Choice Words

Communication with other folks is a risky business. There is:

1. What you said.
2. What you meant.
3. What I thought I heard you say.
4. What I thought you meant.

Rarely are these all exactly the same message, and there may be as many as four varying ones! And sometimes, I may hear only what I wanted or expected to hear—different from any of the above four.

That possibility reminds me of a clever word-twisting story that one of my brothers favored and gave to me, many years ago, on a couple of purple-imprinted sheets duplicated on a Ditto Machine. (Okay, you don't know about this if you are younger than, say, forty-five!) Written nearly seventy years ago by Howard L. Chace, it demonstrates how words can say what we want them to and not what they really mean. Chace re-wrote the fairy tale, "Little Red Riding Hood," and later a whole book of stories (Anguish Languish), into plain English words--but never the correct ones, relying on speed and intonation alone to convey the meaning. In case you are interested in such "terminal silliness," there's a link (Edited: at a community college site) here to the furry tell of Ladle Rat Rotten Hut or you can skip it altogether.

"A few choice words" does not have to mean, as we so often use the phrase, that someone spouted profanities or was verbally abusive. They are the means of effective communication. The Scripture says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." (Proverbs 25:11 KJV)

MaryMartha
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Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com