I have been wanting to write about this for some time. This happens, in some shape or form, whenever someone reads others on the internet. Especially on sensitive subjects. Many readers are linguistic sleuths. Every fraction of language will be forcefully interpreted and analyzed in order to reveal some hidden truth (which is always assumed to be negative), the user’s actual position, his or her...
If I reason about trivial things, it is because those things are not trivial to me Introduction I have the terrible habit of being unnervingly concise. As the son of old-school print journalists, that comes with the territory. I learned how to write at school, but my parents taught me how to write well. The newsroom trained them on the importance of writing correctly and succinctly. Their whole...
Today I am putting in writing some very personal thoughts on how to best communicate online and otherwise. We all know the importance of interpretative charity in online discourse. Without it, we are bound to waste precious time and mental resources chasing dead ends which can be easily avoided by assuming that the interlocutor is both capable and willing to engage in rational conversation...