[Neurons] 2017 Neurons #49 Thick Conversations: A Challenge to Clarity

Sun Oct 29 21:13:12 EDT 2017

From: L. Michael Hall

2017 Neurons #49

October 30, 2017

Conversations #3

THICK CONVERSATIONS

A Challenge to Clarity

When I listen to some conversations, they seem and feel thick.  It is not
only difficult to have some conversations due to the assumptions that are
built within them and the unpredictability of words (Neurons #47, #48),
conversations can be difficult due to the density of words.  Here is another
language problem that makes conversations difficult, namely- the density of
language.

This refers to the fact that some words and some phrases are exceptionally
dense.  The density or compactness within some words make it very difficult
to unpack the meaning and to understand.  Density arise from how words can
carry a heavy load of ideas.  That is, a lot of thoughts, a multitude of
ideas, and multiple levels of meanings can be packed into a single word or
phrase.

Horne Tooke (1832) discovered and wrote about this fact regarding language
back in the nineteenth century.  What he wrote about was the structural
parts of language- the prepositions, conjunctions, prefixes, suffixes, etc.
He noted that these parts of language, which once referred to full-fledged,
ideas are whittled down to little symbols.  

He said that over the centuries, through a continuous process of
condensation and abbreviation,  people cram more and more meaning into fewer
and fewer words.  What once took a whole sentence or a clause to express,
came to be compressed it into a single word or phrase.   He talked about
language as "full of clever devices that make for more and more speed."  "A
single participle or complex word can take the place of a cumbersome
word-combination." (p. 132).  To illustrate, he used radioactivity as an
example.

"Most of the long, complex words in modern prose are not labels for things
in the world around us - like radioactivity- but condensed expressions of
abstract ideas that can be expressed just as well in two or more shorter
words." (135)

Here's a contemporary example, a statement that was issued from the Veterans
Administration.  While it sounds like legalese, it is a description to
employees about their compensation.   How clear are you about the message
that someone is trying to communicate? 

"The non-compensable evaluation heretofore assigned you for your
service-connected disability is confirmed and continued."

Now try to discern the meaning in that one!  The trouble is that the
thoughts are bunched together in tight little bundles like "non-compensable'
or 'service-connected.'   Talk about dense and compact!  Yes, lawyers tend
to write that way, politicians talk that way, and so do people who think in
general or global ways.  Here are some things I've heard in coaching- 

"I really want to achieve success in my assertiveness when I speak with my
colleagues and confirm the union of our joint commitment."

"Getting into the serenity of the present will give me more flow for a
benevolence of connecting that I haven't had in the past." 

If there is any language form that is dense it is nominalizations and when a
person speaks with multiple nominalizations, the density of the sentences
makes understanding and comprehension increasingly difficult.  

"Threats to my self-esteem have been destructive to my relationship and
needs to be corrected."

The italicized words are nominalizations- verbs that have been reformulated
into nouns.  But they are pseudo-names.  It is not really "a person, place,
or thing."  It is a process and set of actions that are coded as if it were
a thing.  But it is not.  The person is either threatening himself or
receiving a threat from someone that he is interpreting as against his
process of esteeming (appraising) himself of value and he is saying that
this process is destroying how he relates to someone.  That brings up lots
of questions:

           Who or what is threatening?  What is the threat?  Is it
legitimate or just words?

           How are you valuing yourself as a person?  Are you doing this
conditionally or unconditionally?  What criteria are you using in this
appraisal that you are making?

           When you hear the threat, how is that related to the valuing or
dis-valuing yourself as having value?  How are you using it to destroy how
you relate?

           Who are you relating to?  How are you relating?  How does you're
accepting of the threat to destroy your value?

Density!  Compactness.  Some words and phrases are really loaded and have to
be unloaded.  In fact, the conversation cannot really continue unless we
take time to unpack the meaning to actually understand what someone is
saying.

Take the word "truth" for another example.  Originally it meant, "that which
is trowed."   And "to trow" meant to think, to believe firmly, to be
thoroughly persuaded of.  Implied within the term "truth" is the assumption
that some person is thinking or believing something or thoroughly persuaded
of.  But what?  What is the person thinking or believing?  And who?  Who is
doing the thinking?

We have to unpack and that's one of the functions of all conversations.  We
unpack from each other what the other person means by the words and gestures
he is using.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

               Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

                    Dr. Hall's email:
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