There's a very real sense in which words have conjured the world as we know it. Which is why we should treat them with care.
Tag: communication
Go Ahead, Judge Me
I think we should spend less time saying "don't judge," and more time saying "judge wisely." Here's why.
2 Ways to Know Bo (and Each Other)
The two basic types of English nouns point to two basically different types of knowledge. Here's what each can teach us about how to know each other.
Listen Skeptically
In 20 years as a writer and editor, I've learned to give everyone the benefit of my doubts-or at least to try.
Finding the Right Words
It's mostly the distance between us that makes the right words hard to find. But it's the failure to find words--any words--that increases the distance between us.
What You’re Hearing Is Less than The Truth
But it isn't all a pack of lies, either.
Customer Service: A True Story
The lesson I learned about service from a mysterious, far-away woman.
A Letter from Abroad
Rare things are typically more valuable than common ones. Communications included.
Why Are People So Easily Deceived?
After watching another week of election-year shenanigans, my teen-aged daughter asked me a pretty adult question: “why are so many people so easily deceived? She was thinking of a particular set of people on one side of the political spectrum, but I thought bigger. The hard truth, after all, is that we’re all susceptible to …
You Can’t Handle the Truth. (Really, You Can’t.)
Since graduate school at least, I've believed (and occasionally argued) that truth is best thought of as a property of reflections on or about the world--a characteristic of statements, arguments, or even works of art. This is hardly an original claim: Ludwig Wittgenstein, W.V.O. Quine, and many others have made more eloquent arguments for this …
Continue reading You Can’t Handle the Truth. (Really, You Can’t.)
