Pay Attention to How You Say It

I’m really cranky today. It’s all because of one question: Do you want to join us for clean up? Of course I don’t. It’s just a question, and it wasn’t asked in any way rude at all. What is really bothering me is the semantic of the question. Semantics is the study of language, often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation. I can get really anal when it comes to word selection and connotation.

While working as a staff writer for the school newspaper and having my editor tell me that my sentences are too vague or ambiguous, I started noticing the vagueness and ambiguity in the spoken language. I was “writing like I speak”, as people tell me to do.

My outrage over poor semantics is also stimulated by “Yes I can” followed by inaction in response to the question “Can you hand me the _____?” Although said jokingly, it makes me sound stupid.

It’s really annoying when people take the context for granted. For the most part, misunderstanding will come about from the difference in interpersonal communications. Because of such vagueness and ambiguity, what is said may be misinterpreted by the other person. It also makes you sound stupid and a little conceited. Either you have limited vocabulary and is unable to express yourself, or you expect everyone to know what you are referring to.

Back to the question at hand: Do you want to join us for clean up? Like I said before, no I don’t. In context, it is more of a command than a question; however, putting it in that way gives the askee the option to say yes or no. You could start with “Can you…?” but that would just feed my rage. I am not an etymologist, but I think the proper way would be to say “Come help us clean up.” It will limit the responses and will do a better job of calling someone to action.

It takes an above average effort for me to deal with poor semantics. I can understand if one’s usage of English is translated from another language, since English is a bit weird. But if one is proficient in English and say to me “What time is it? I need a watch,” then I will definitely tell you “It’s time to get a watch.”

Another thing that really annoys me is redundant phrases, or tautology. The book Armed Gunmen, True Facts, and Other Ridiculous Nonsense: A Compiled Compendium of Repetitive Redundancies is self-explanatory.