![]() ![]() Maybe we should venture deeper into colloquial English and say, Mom died today. And perfect communication can occur without one word being spoken. Endless variables can affect what, and how, and how much we understand: age, class, language, culture, gender, history, and so forth. Maybe some people will understand what we mean, but some people never will, and inevitably someone will think we meant something entirely different from whatever we had in mind. Of course, an intelligent seven-year-old could point out the problems with this. Someone (not us) can figure out what we are trying to say. The simplest definition may be best: To write clearly means that another person can understand what we mean. But in fact it’s surprisingly difficult to define this deceptively obvious concept. ![]() ![]() Which one of the rungs in the ladder were we warned to watch out for? Was it the basement or the bathtub that Auntie Em told us to take shelter in when the tornado hit Kansas?Įxplaining what it means to be clear should, in theory, be easy. Is that driver approaching the intersection signaling right or left? Is the brain surgeon asking for a scalpel or a clamp? One could argue that the consequences of writing an unintelligible sentence are not nearly so drastic as a car wreck or a botched operation. The dangers of not being clear are obvious. ![]() If we are hoping to communicate something-anything-nothing is more important than clarity. ![]()
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