Speak For the Listener
Not for you
I have an ongoing love affair with language. I have since I was a kid (you’re talking to a middle school spelling bee champion). And I have made it my goal to learn six languages by the time I’m 40.
I am obsessed with both the macro and micro of language — the ways we use it as a culture, the way we construct our thoughts, but also the specific words we use and the emphasis we use in our sentences. Because the way people speak says a lot about them. In fact, you can probably learn more per unit of time spent with somebody from their language than you can from anything else about them. More so than their body language, their appearance, or their physical habits.
Which is why I think it’s so important to reflect upon the way you speak. To deeply consider your word choice, the things you choose to emphasize, and the things that come up repeatedly in your speech. It’s a great way to assess who you are and where you’re headed.
All of the people I have tremendous respect for have one thing in common: they aren’t forceful with their language. They don’t insist upon its strength or its implications. They don’t use language in a demanding way. In a world full of hammers, the most respectable people I know are more like unthreatening socket wrenches — always tightening carefully. Tightening up their language so as to make it as precise and honest as possible.
Sometimes you hear people say things like "this coffee is absolutely incredible" or "that was literally the funniest thing I heard this week."
I don't know any wise people who speak this way.
The most effective way to communicate is to let your words speak for you. Keep your words spare enough and naked enough as to be worthy of consideration on their own. Without qualifiers and forceful adjectives. Without "literally" and "incredibly." Without “absolutely” and “I swear to God.” By allowing your words to speak for themselves, you give them more power. You make them worth listening to.
"That really was a good meal."
That sounds genuine and appreciative. It sounds like you've enjoyed the meal thoughtfully and rendered a happy judgment. It sounds like a compliment.
Whereas "that lunch was absolutely amazing" tends to come off as adolescent and exaggerated. It tends to come off as less genuine, less thoughtful. It tends to come off like you're trying to make the situation about you and your feedback.
That's the thing with exaggerated, forceful language. Whether you're aware of it or not, and whether those around you are aware of it or not, it's a symptom of you trying to make everything about you.
You're trying to make your reaction to things what is important. You're trying to seem special. This is especially a problem in America, where we just cannot bear the thought of not being heard. We feel entitled to be seen and heard and have an opinion on everything at all times. And of course that's nonsense. If you don't have something worth saying, you shouldn't be speaking. Or tweeting, or posting on Instagram. So you ate a delicious lunch — great. But the things that should be honored here are the food, and the woman or man who prepared it. Your praise should be about them. Not about how loudly you can be heard talking about it.
You ever see those unfortunate things online called “reaction videos”? That’s what I’m talking about. People are actually selfish enough, actually delusional enough, en masse, to think that their idiosyncratic reaction to something is worthy of reviewing at a later time on the internet.
And that’s what we do with our language. We insist upon it. We use heavy, forceful adjectives and adverbs to make demands of our listener. I demand that you hear the gravity of what I’m saying about the crepe I had this morning. I demand that you take MY assessment of this regular, everyday situation seriously.
It’s a whole lot of exuberance and high volume for nothing.
I heard comedian Louis C.K. one time talking about language in a similar way. He recalled a guy sitting in a restaurant. The guy was talking to his friend about how it was “hilarious” that he ran into some woman they know.
And Louie became, like, violently resentful of what he deemed a careless use of that word. “Hilarious means so funny that you almost went insane,” he said with scorn. “Hilarious means so funny that it almost ruined your life.”
And of course he’s exaggerating. But his point has never escaped my mind.
“What are you gonna do with your life now?” he asks. “You used ‘amazing’ on a basket of chicken wings.”
By slowing down and not being so heavy-handed with your speech, you earn the right to be heard more clearly and by more people. Only when you stop shoving and start offering will you actually be heard. People will pull what you have to say closer to them — you won’t have to push it.
When I hear someone wise speak, I shut out everything that everyone else is saying and I listen intently to what he or she is offering. Because it matters. This person doesn’t decorate their language with trimmings and slang; they don’t get cute and trendy with it; and they certainly don’t force it on me. They say something that is worth saying, and then they stop speaking.
And that also goes for writing, of course. I can’t tell you how many times, while writing this blog, I have delivered a sentence onto my screen that I thought was beautiful. Like an old painting from Monet — perfectly shaped and manicured with all the right colors.
And then, I highlight the whole paragraph and hit backspace.
Because, in almost all of those cases, I’m making it about me as a writer. Not you as a reader. It’s me trying to be cute. And that’s not my goal here.
My goal here is to give you something to chew on. Something useful, practical, hopefully even actionable, that will help you have a better week and become a better person.
And that’s what our speech should be like too. It should be about the listener, not the speaker.
Drink water and chew on it,
JDR
“Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.” - Cesar Chavez