A Follow-up to "What Do You Mean by 'Communication'?"

My dear father and Socratic teacher, Wayne Unks, was kind enough to probe thoroughly into the meaning of my previous post. I started replying in the comments, but...it really just got too long. His comments were:

"Must mutual understanding be achieved in order for an exchange of thoughts to be considered communication?"
and
"...if the recipient doesn't understand the sender's thoughts and, according to the above definition, communication did not happen, then what did take place? With respect to your analogy, a download still occurred - data got to the intended destination. It may not be useable (i.e. understood), but the download took place. The same can be true of sharing - I may share an object with you, you receive it (hear or read it in the case of a thought exchange), but don't make use of it (or understand it). That doesn't mean I didn't share with you."

My reply is as follows:

What Do You Mean by "Communication"?

So I've got this talk about communication, and how it's so important and the heart of human interaction and all this. But then I thought, well, a bloody lot of good these ideas do anyone if the reader and I aren't on the same page.  So here is my attempt to define this expansive term.

How to Demonstrate that You Don't Care

"I want them to think big, but everyone keeps doing the same small-time stuff." "They think I don't care, but I really want to move us forward." If these phases sound familiar, it may be that you're doing a great job of sending mixed signals. A lack of consistency is the quickest way to communicate, "I don't care".

This cat is indifferent to your plight.

Care about what? People. Whether it's your co-worker, daughter, friend, brother, wife--in any case, a lack of consistency discourages people from trusting you to care about them. The list below gives six examples of these inconsistent behaviors.

7 Reasons to Write (and Publish It)

You can't be a thought leader if you're not generating original content. If all you're doing is sharing, re-tweeting, and re-posting, then you are following, not leading. Without writing, all I can accomplish is to serve as an amplifier for the people with the microphone. And no one goes to their speakers to brainstorm new ideas or ask for advice on a problem. They go to the source.

Pictured: the forward progress made by only reposting.

So why bother being a source? It's a lot of work, especially if it's not your main job. (I'm only just discovering this myself.) Here are five seven reasons why it's worth the extra effort to create original content:

Constant Contact

I will be the first to admit it: I am terrible at keeping in contact with people. I'm inconsistent, I delay my replies, and when I finally do write them, who knows what you'll get? Maybe a 30-word email that addresses the main points of yours, but nothing more. Or maybe I will write you a figurative or literal letter with multiple pages and a great deal of response, and then an update on the last six months of my life as well. It's a crap-shoot--but every time I send out the quick text or email version, I wince inside that I'm not dedicating more of my poorly-allocated time to holding up my end of my relationship with that person.

That's what communication is about--relationship. It's not about fancy words, saying the right thing the right way, "proper" speech or grammar. Those aspects are important, because how one uses them affects the relationship. And following the rules or conventions for grammar, word use, and the rest make it easier to ensure that one's point is understood.

Literally

It's no mystery that the meanings of words evolve. They go in and out of popularity and propriety and, for being the primary method we have for describing our experiences, are by and large bloody unreliable. My  favorite example of this is the word "nice", although there are scores of examples of such words that used to mean one thing, and now are something very different. (But I will spare you my raving over these.)

And now I'm going to open my mouth (but not literally!) on that topic that has the most cursory linguaphile up-in-arms. It started (from what I can gather) with this article decrying the addition of the "figurative" definition of "literally" to the major dictionaries and Google.  Communicators, word-lovers, and Grammar Nazis alike have raged for many years against this egregious misuse by those less attentive than themselves, but this, it seems, was the last straw, and now the Internet is figuratively exploding with grammarian rants and counter-rants and great fervor over this small addition that would seem in line with general linguistic evolution.

Ever So Truly and Totally

I read an article recently--discussing writing lessons from famous authors--in which one of the quotes advised that one eschew the use of adverbs. "What horror," thought I, collector of words that I am. "Why disparage an entire grammatical category?"
Then I thought about the résumés that I have helped develop and the papers that I have edited. They were rife with phrases such as "Enthusiastically participated", "tirelessly pursued", "fervently studied", and "whole-heartedly applied".
The trouble with adverbs, I think, is that they are inherently superlative.  Adverbs' chief job is to modify modifiers (adjectives) or verbs, and thus it is difficult for them to supply distinctive, new information.  Thus in business and academic writing, they come off as flowery and a waste of breath.  In literary situations, the additional time required to read the adverbs can take away from the intensity of a situation and distract the reader from the narrative. Their very presence lessens the impact of what they are describing.
If one "enthusiastically participated" in a study, well, wouldn't one's enthusiasm be more efficiently and effectively conveyed with a more enthusiastic verb, such as "devote"?  And to say that one did something "whole-heartedly" conveys that one may think it acceptable to do that thing with less than one's whole heart. On a résumé such unnecessary qualification suggests that, at times, the applicant does her work with half of her attention and may care very little about her tasks.
The crucial point on adverbs, then, is this: use better words.
Writing is so much more engaging when the words are acute representations of their concepts. Modifying generic adjectives or verbs with exciting adverbs just to try to be creative short-changes the perfectly good, underused words with which English abounds!  Instead of "running quickly", dash!  Do not be merely "very happy"-- be ecstatic, or jubilant! Go forth and--rather than writing--scrawl, jot, scribble and compose with gusto!