The Art of Communication- and saying nothing at all

I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that I love words. As parents we encourage our children to “use their words”, when they are angry or frustrated. The art of communication has taken a hit in the last decade or so. We no longer use our words effectively.

Have we simply become,

mimes that play a perpetual game of charades to communicate?

Mimes- an artist that uses gestures to tell a story, usually comical, first originated in Greece around 467 B.C. And although it was mostly imagery there was some song and vocal to the presentation. This evolved into a more formal entertainment consisting of the nonvocal storytelling in the 18th century.

Pantomime evolved around the 16th century consisting of acrobatics, dance and stock characters that had a mischievious bent. It is said to have 3 main components. [Consistency, exaggerated resistance and exaggerated facial expressions and gestures]

Are you getting the picture?

sampling alphabet soup

If you attended college, sat through lectures or have listened to business presentations in the last 20 years then you have been privy to that tasty, exasperating dish of alphabet soup. I found a great definition of this. The deliberate and excessive use of acronyms and abbreviations to appear more knowledgeable in the subject or confuse others.

Isn’t that great! I personally hate initials. I have sat in meetings or listened to lectures numerous times valiantly trying to take notes and learn, only to become completely derailed when a string of initials is thrown out. For me, I don’t hear anything else until my brain picks through all the possibilities of what was intended. I can write it down but what if it needed to be remembered in context?

A medical company once outlawed all “unapproved” initials and acronyms in medical charts and notes. And if you have ever had to translate or convert a paper chart into an electronic version then you can certainly understand why. The liability of being misunderstood took on all new proportions when the electronic medical record was first introduced and implemented.

introducing email

Believe it or not the first emails were sent in 1965. It was in 1972 that Ray Tomlison gave us the ability to send emails across a network, computer to computer. It didn’t take long before the major communication companies jumped onboard and soon ‘snail mail’ became a joke and inefficient. Yet we still hang on….

Enough with the history lesson. Lets talk about communicating with email. There are different types of conversationalists. Those that are verbose and enjoy the excessive use of words and those that are the wham, bam thank you but just give me the facts ma’am sort. Depending upon your audience you may lose them in the first couple of sentences if you follow the loquacious pathway. Ah-h but what can happen for those that communicate with just the facts?

misunderstanding!

An email in its sparsity cannot convey emotion or intent ofttimes resulting in hurt feelings or worse a professional faux pas that cannot always be mended. Email gave us the ability to cross miles, complete conversations and business deals all with the simplicity of a keystroke. But at what cost?

when our words fail us

Enter Emojis, emoticons, memes and emoji memes. Email is a beautiful thing but as our words became not enough or in some instances too much we struggled for a way to soften the blow or portray the intent more effectively. We began with our keyboard. (wink!) (; or (smile) (:

But still we needed more.

Meet EMOJI- a small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc. https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

Those charming little devils that take the sting from a remark that could have been interpreted as snarky. And they evolve as well. The selection is never ending. Even pornographic at times (for heavens sakes don’t talk about your zucchini or eggplant garden via emoji in a work email!)

And have you met MEME? an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme

just when you thought it was safe to wade back in

Ok, so now we have left our words behind. We have perfected the art of communication and translated it into code both electronically and through the use of pictures. But wait! Gen Z has reportedly rewritten the codes. Look out Millenials! An emoticon no longer is what it seems. Ar-rgh! you say. I feel your pain. I remember discovering (in a very embarrassing moment in the 80’s) that EMHO meant ‘early morning hard on’. Imagine my chagrin the first time I saw it in print a few years ago. Only to discover it was only ‘in their humble opinion.

are we just mimes playing a perpetual game?

Maybe. Or maybe it is how we adjust. If you believe this source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME then a MIME is this:

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of email messages to support text in character sets other than ASCII, as well as attachments of audio, video, images, and application programs. Message bodies may consist of multiple parts, and header information may be specified in non-ASCII character sets. Email messages with MIME formatting are typically transmitted with standard protocols, such as the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), the Post Office Protocol (POP), and the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).

Well isn’t that what we have said all along? The art of communication is not lost. It just looks and feels different. We have new tools and toys of expression but the real meaning lies in the deliverer. Always remember, be kind in your words and actions. (And keep the garden discussions to a verbal encounter)

As always,

I am Sassaleeyours…