A Little More Conversation

My sisters and I often moan about it - the slow death of conversation.

I don't know if it's television, mobile phones, industrial deafness, congenital dullness or people with a genuine disinterest in others but it seems the average person today has no idea as to how to start a conversation or keep one going.

The other day I sat on one side of a long-table at a local function and was amazed at how the lady sitting two feet from me was looking at me yet could not rouse herself sufficiently to even say hello.

As usual, I took the bull by the horns.  I said:  "Hi, my name's Bronwyn.  How do you know Linda?" (the function organiser).   There was the slight uplift of eyebrows as if to say:  "Me?  You want to talk to me?"

Actually, I didn't because the truth is, after around 40 years of trying to show an interest in people, there are occasionally moments when the very idea of it is, frankly, wearying.

What is it with people these days?  Even when we find the time to sit down with people we know, there is often complete disinterest in conversation.    

The average person is content to sit their like the cold leftovers of a long-forgotten dinner and,  I don't know, I suppose just wallow in a moment of exuding their own dullness.

Personally, I can't see the point.  Human relationships are about interaction, and interactions begin with a genuine interest in others.

You'd be surprised at what you can learn if you just take the time to engage with another human being.

A simple question about why they might be sitting where they are, might lead to an association and possibly a common interest or experience that may find your time at that table you're sitting is passed much more pleasantly.

Conversation is, in fact, at the heart of every relationship - whether with your lover, a work colleague or a friend.  As Wikipaedia observes, Conversation is indispensable for the successful accomplishment of almost all activities between people, especially the coordination of work, the formation of friendships and for learning.

It is therefore, I believe, an essential skill that we should all aim to become more proficient at. 

Feel uncomfortable conversing?  Then you need to learn how and the best way to do so is to start practicing!

Most conversations commence with a question or an observation.  Try to avoid complaining, whinging or gossiping about other people.  Focus on ideas, things that are happening around you, perhaps a news item you may have seen on TV or read about.  Introduce a subject and see where it takes you.  If it leads to a dead-end, try another tack.

With each new conversation, your skills will improve and before you know it, you'll find people gravitate toward you because you'll be genuinely interesting.   Good luck!

Who wants to know?

Proclamations of love.  Daily intimacies. Daily diaries overflowing with mundanities.  Often hastily scribed, sometimes bubbling with excitement, and perhaps an overuse of punctuation.

Don't you love social networking sites?  All of a sudden, once-lonely Leona has a million 'friends' or 'followers' and boy, is she embracing the share-fest.

The voyeur in me loves it - and sure, it's heartening to know that I am not alone in my imperfect, angst-ridden life.

But the communicator in me can't help but cringe.

The fact is that all communication should be about 'targeting' or niching messages specific to an audience, something that is lost to the average Facebook user.  Not every message is interesting, relevant or suitable for every person and is dependent on a range of demographics - age, education, culture and so on.

Despite privacy options that enable us to distill our friends into lists, unfortunately most people don't realise that the more "friends" you accumulate, the more care needs to be taken in exactly what is said or shared.

Okay, I know it takes the fun out of it.  It's the spontaneous, visceral 'posts' I enjoy - the friend in the thrall of jubilation, the one needing advice and counsel, the one having a bad day, the one (usually me) not afraid to post a heartfelt expletive.

But the cruel reality is that the more obscure the degrees of connection to your world of Facebook friends, the more caution we all need to take in who, what, where and when we choose to post our feeling, thought or insight of the moment.

Spontaneous communications are wonderful between intimate friends, but as the degrees of separation get into their double digits, it is wisest to practice some self-censorship.

Start with your motivations.

Remember that your commentary on sites like Facebook and Twitter are a window to your world.  Do you want to impress, inspire, titillate, shock, amuse, inform, entertain, excite?

From the great 'why', the 'what' will follow and please, don't forget the most important consideration in my view, 'who'.  Who wants to know?

We're virtually friends!

I know I'm not the first person to contemplate this subject, and I certainly won't be the last, but lately I've been thinking about the impact of the strange world of web-based communication, particularly through social networking sites.

It seems that these days the degrees of separation between humanoids is infinitesmal as sites such as Facebook and Twitter bring together virtual strangers in interactions that, from my observations, can be transformed in a timeframe that is mindboggling from 'Hello, what bar of soap are you?' to a level of sometimes cloying intimacy.

In a matter of hours or minutes in fact, if you tallied up the real-time allocations to each discrete communication activity, a person who is just a series of on-line conversations can be elevated to 'close friend' and before you know it, you're intimately acquainted (or you believe you are) with someone who it is highly likely, you will never encounter in the flesh.  The funny thing is, you probably don't even really know if you want to!

It's no wonder then that this new mode of communicating and connecting with people raises many questions about the etiquette that should be followed and the kinds of boundaries that may be wise in part to ensure that these virtual relationships are authentic.

From my observations, most humans have barely mastered the art of face-to-face communication and now, the average Joe and Janine are required to understand the dynamics of a a still evolving mode or interaction.  

The paradox, however, is that while online forums are arguably one of the most accessible forms of communication for busy people, time-strapped, money conscious and hindered by draining routines that make more meaningful face-to-face interactions well nigh impossible, they are also the most complex and, to a degree, difficult.

That's because, to state the bleeding obvious, raw words delivered in the written form on screen are scribed often quickly and less conscientiously than other communication tasks.  At the same time, they are not finessed by the usual modifiers that are the luxury of the spoken word - tone, expression, volume, pitch, pace and so on - that can convey emotion, and therefore intent.

Words onscreen then are just what they are.  Words.   And like any collection of words, they are open to interpretation based on, for example, the receiver's experiences, education, expectations, circumstances, current state of mind and even sobriety.

All of this needs to be considered when exchanging any kind of virtual communication - whether it is an email or a comment on your Facebook page.

The first rule therefore should be to always check and recheck what you've written to ensure it may not be read in a way you might not have intended.

Remember my motto:  Fingertips that slip, can sink friendships.

More on this topic in later blogs.  

Diligence Schmiligence

If you're a lawyer or any kind of businessman, you'll understand the term 'due diligence' - it's a process of care a reasonable person must complete before entering into any agreement or transaction with another party, usually in a financial arrangement.

Now due diligence is a pretty fine thing, applied properly and in my thinking, it's a process we can all apply to one of the most frequent transactions we make - and that's in our daily communication.

Like a financial transaction, communication in its true form involves an exchange: one party gives a piece of information to another party and in processing it, there's due diligence required on both sides to ensure the transaction is effected to the mutual benefit of all parties.

It seems fairly straightforward to me but I'm often amazed at how frequently communication is despatched without enough of the due diligence required.

In my world of public relations in fact, there are often 'whoopsies' that can sometimes necessitate damage control and usually are the result of over-worked and exhausted practitioners juggling too many balls,

That, of course, is no excuse!

Every one of us can benefit from taking some extra time to ensure we conduct good due diligence on both our private and public communications.

SOME DUE DILIGENCE TIPS

For written communication

• Check the accuracy of your facts including names and titles
• Check dates if relevant (it's a common mistake to have the right date but the wrong day of the week, for example)
• Check the appropriateness of your language (especially, approach the use of humour with care)
• Check your spelling - and no, do not rely on a spell checker. In Commonwealth countries, the Oxford English is preferred while Microsoft relies on the Webster.
• Check your punctuation and grammar.
• Check the overall presentation of your document. Sloppy layouts can deter your reader.
• Avoid typo-ventillation!

For spoken communication

• If it's an important meeting, practice what you'll say. It is amazing how much this process helps you clarify thinking.
• Make notes if you must.
• Check your facts.
• Moderate your tone throughout the interchange.
• Be aware of your language. Avoid using qualifers like "absolutely" or "definitely" as they often give an impression of insincerity or uncertainty.
• Be aware of eye contact, posture, proximity and so on.

Due diligence is especially important in our time of increasingly globalisation. Companies seeking to diversify into global markets should be aware of the importance of due diligence in terms of cross-cultural communication.

We can learn from the mistakes of big brands. Here are some I've found. Enjoy!


Coca-Cola
When Coca-Cola moved into China, the famous brand was rendered in Chinese characters.   Regrettably, these translated to "bite the wax tadpole" in one dialect, which sounds very sexy don't you think?  In another dialect it meant "female horse stuffed with wax".  Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, Ko-Kou-Ko-Le which could be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth" - aah, much better!


Pepsi Cola
Coke's nemesis, Pepsi also decided to launch in China and discovered too late that its catch 'Pepsi give you zest for life' slogan translated to 'Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave'.  Yoiks!  Now that's one way to cure a soft-drink addiction!


Zube Throat Sweets
This successful British throat lozenge was launched into the North African Arab Market - alas, 'Zube' is a slang term for a large horse's penis, apparently.  
Nestle Baby Milk
In Central Africa, the local people are used to labelling that depicts the food that is inside the tin because many people cannot read English.  When Nestle imported its tins of baby food into the region, the graphic on the label included a smiling baby.  


Vauxhull
Vauxhall launched its small car the Nova model into Spain - but 'no va' in the lingo means 'won't go'.  The care was later renamed the Caribe.


Triumph
Over to Germany, where a British car maker launghed its Triump Acclaim model.  The brand 'Triumph Acclaim' in German translates to 'Sieg Heil'.  One assumes it ran on gas.


Sunmaid Californian Raisins
The British are known to be a bit bawdy at times but Sunmaid Raisins might have done their homework a little better.  On the back of the packaging of this product, Sunmaid suggested:  "Why not try tossing over your favourite breakfast cereal?"  In the UK, 'tossing' is a slang word for masturbation.  Perhaps a good meal for Onan the Barbarian


Coors
Coors ads did not run well in the Spanish market when their otherwise successful slogan 'Turn it Loose' translated into the Spanish 'Get Diarrhoea'... the beer must've been crap.


Starbucks
Starbucks executives must have got themselves into a right froth when thousands of posters were printed in Germany encouraging their Teutonic customers to 'Enjoy your morning Latte'.  In German, 'Latte' is slang for an erection.  Oops.

WARNING: Contains Explicit Language!

"Nobody heard of fucking Howling Dogs. I was fucking living in a fucking packing crate in the alley behind Romanos Pizza. I've been punk, funk, grunge, and R&B. I've been with the Funky Butts, the Pitts, Beggar Boys, and Howling Dogs. I was with Howling Dogs the longest. It was a fucking depressing experience. I couldn't stand fucking singing all those fucking songs about fucking hearts fucking breaking and fucking goldfish fucking going to heaven. And then I had to fucking look like some western dude. I mean, how can you have any self-respect when you have to go on stage in a cowboy hat?"  I was pretty good at cussing, but I didn't think I could keep up with Sally. On my best day, I couldn't squeeze all those "f" words into a sentence. "Boy, you can really curse," I said.  "You can't be a fucking musician without fucking cursing."

Janet Evanovich in Stephanie Plum

The Fucking F-Word is everywhere. It's hard to ignore with popular culture fucking bulging at the fucking seams with expletives, mainly beginning with the Letter F. My sister Fiona and I are both aspiring writers and recently, we were talking about these words, swear words that fucking crop up when you least fucking expect them and can totally fuck up your view of whatever piece of writing you're fucking reading at the time.

Being the good Catholic girl that I am, dropping fucking words into my fucking writing is fucking liberating. It's like committing a fucking sin and even as I write this blog, I'm checking over my shoulder for a fucking nun to come out and biff me across the fucking ears.

Back in my younger days, 'fuck' really used to be a bad word but I have to confess, it was sometimes heard within the four walls of my home partly because of my dad who had a stint as a truck driver. As a Ceylonese immigrant wanting to speak like the fucking natives, you had to fuck around with the word a bit just to show you fucking belonged.

When I was much smaller and still living in what was still Ceylon, Dad didn't use use any fucking bad words. I used to hear him say "bloody shit" on the phone when he was 'blackguarding' someone (a commonly used Ceylonese word), but the most we'd dare to say was 'fiddlesticks' or 'balderdash', thanks in part to the diet of Enid Blyton books that played a big role in our education. Hey, we even called our folks Mummy and Daddy so WTF - Enid had a lot to fucking answer for.

Nowadays though, the F-word seems to be fucking inescapable and, as both a writer and communicator, I can't help thinking "What the Fuck?" is our language completely fucked?  If you have children, just have a look if you can at your child's Facebook or MSN site.  It's not just the F-Words these fucking kids are using.  There's also the C-word and it's no big fucking deal to them. 

Once upon a time, the careful placement of an F-word could add considered colour to a sentence.  It was the fucking rarity of the useage of the word that was the source of its power.  

 You may have heard the "F-word" originated in ye olde England when apparently folks needed a permit to have children with said permit allowing Fornication Under Consent of the King. Sadly though, it's a load of fucking crap.   

In fact, the roots of the word "fuck" are derived from its Anglo Saxon heritage. The German 'ficken' and the Dutch 'fokken' both mean 'to breed' while the Proto-Germanic 'fokan' means to copulate. The fucking Dutch do not consider 'fokken' crude, but the fucking Germans and Scandinavians do.

But why would a writer or any communicator choose to use these fucking words considering there are so many other words in our language?

Certainly, at least once upon a fucking time, the type and frequency of epithets (ie. swear words) indicated a certain level of education and breeding. Characters didn't fucking swear willy nilly.

The Queen in Alice in Wonderland did not shout "Off with his fucking head"...Juliet did not cry: "Romeo, Romeo where the fuck are you?"...Hannibal Lecter did not say: "A fucking census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a fucking nice chianti."

And as Calamity Jane, Doris Day certainly did not say: "What fucking excitment?  Why I got more fucking arrows in the back of that coach than a porcupine's got fucking stickers."  No siree.

How times have fucking changed.  These days, even if the use of swear words is true to the fucking character, its overuse can be truly nauseating and even distressing.  Frankly, my brain tends to flat-line after the first 20 or so F-words because those fucking words can hammer the joy out or your reading or viewing experience, for fuck's sake.  Why do characters need to swear so much?

My advice to anyone who writes anything - whether toilet graffiti or Academy Award winning dialogue, is therefore to use the F-Word with caution.  Less is more and the best example is the opening to the cinematic hit, "Four Weddings and a Funeral".  After an opening where Hugh Grant's character, late for a wedding mutters:  "Fuck, Fuck, fuck, fuck.  Fuck! Fuck, fuckity fuck fuck... fuck-a-doodle-doo", the rest of the movie was fairly tame with barely an F-Word showing its foul-mouthed fucking head.  There were enough swear words to raise a smile without overdoing it. 

Remember that, unlike a James Bond martini, you want your audience stirred, not fucking shaken. 

If you're still seeking guidance, let me leave you with this vignette from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I hope you'll find it instructive as Kirk and Spock converse aboard a bus: 

KIRK: Excuse me! ...Excuse me! Would you mind stopping that noise?
(a punk turns up his ghetto blaster sound)
 

KIRK: Excuse me! Would you mind stopping that damn noise? 
(Spock gives the punk a nerve pinch, stopping the noise and gains a round of applause from the bus)
 

SPOCK: Admiral, may I ask you a question?
 

KIRK: Spock, don't call me Admiral. ...You used to call me Jim. Don't you remember? Jim. ...What's your question?
 

SPOCK: Your use of language has altered since our arrival. It is currently laced with, ...shall I say ...more colourful metaphors. 'Double dumb ass on you' ...and so forth.
 

KIRK: You mean profanity. That's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays any attention to you if you don't swear every other word. You'll find it in all the literature of the period.


SPOCK: For example?
 

KIRK: Oh, the collective works of Jacqueline Susann. The novels of Harold Robbins.
 

SPOCK: Ah! ...'The giants'

What's going down with the lingo?

Barbie turned 50 (with a bit of plastic surgery), we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing and closer to home, Dr Elizabeth Blackburn became the first Australian woman to achieve a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

2009 like any other year had its share of milestones. 

But here's one you probably missed. According to the Global Language Monitor, English passed the 1,000,000 threshold on June 10, 2009 at 10.22 GMT to be precise.

Strangely I found this particular milestone a little depressing. 

English is the official language in 53 countries of the world. It's the first or second language in fact or nearly 2 billion people or roughly a third of the globe.

Yet despite its status as the dominant tongue, I have to say the old language ain't what it used to be.

The fact is, each day in so many ways I am struck by the many ways in which the the English language is bludgeoned and beaten, reduced to its most basic vowels and consonants.

Don't blame it on the Boogie.  Maybe blame the media or blame telecommunications.  But whoever you blame it on, English is in a parlous state. 

Although I have absolutely no science to prove it, I have a theory that the average person today has a far more limited grasp of the language than our forebears did, all those moons ago. It's rare to find anyone with a reasonable grasp of vocabulary that doesn't remember once believing Rock Hudson was straight.

I'm a case in point. I have a vivid recollection of myself as an 11 year old child, working through her "Nutcracker" book - the standard text in English classes across Australia - using words like: obstreperous, pusillanimous, adumbrated --- and so the list goes on. Alright I admit that perhaps I wasn't your average child (buck teeth notwithstanding) but nonetheless my point is that our English vocabulary is being slowly asphyxiated by the noxious gases released from society's increasingly dumber arse (the cheek of it!).

But there are arguments to support both cases - the lower being the argument for simple language, and the upper, for language that might stretch the brain to linger more langorously on the more laborious, perhaps lovelier elements of our lingo.

the lower case

As a communicator I have to admit that it's probably a case of extremely poor corporate writing to use a complex, obscure, usually multi-syllabic word when a simple one would do.  For example, I detest the word 'utilise' when the word 'use' is so much more powerful (I mean, 'He's just utilising you' just doesn't have the same ring as 'he's just using you', now does it?).

Simple Plain English serves clearer communication better and few would argue that you cannot effect communication if your audience doesn't understand you, comprende?

A large vocabulary can often be used to flaunt a level of education that doesn't necessarily reflect a superior knowledge. Often it can hide ignorance. It can obfuscate the issue; confuse it even.

Simple words, on the other hand, enable us to cross linguistic boundaries as nations become increasingly multi-cultural. Big words don't ameliorate anyone's communication situation. They don't even help!

Simple language facilitates understanding.  And simple language means most people at least can spell the words - although I wud not kount on it.

Indeed I am all for simple language in business communication and encourage you to avoid jargon (the argot of the professions) where possible - for purely practical purposes. The true power of any language lies in its simplicity ,after all. Documents prepared in good, simple English are quicker to scan and digest. When you are able to put your argument simply and concisely, you achieve greater clarity.

So how do you gauge just how simple a piece of writing is? One tool you may be familiar with is the Gunning Fog Index. I can't be shagged trying to explain what it is myself - here is what Wikipedia had to say:

In linguistics, the Gunning fog index is a test designed to measure the readability of a sample of English writing. The resulting number is an indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading. That is, if a passage has a fog index of 12, it has the reading level of a U.S. high school senior. (The Courier-Mail, Queensland's only daily newspaper has a Fog Index of 8 by the way.) The test was developed by Robert Gunning, an American businessman, in 1952.The Gunning fog index can be calculated with a fairly time-consuming algorithm but as it's unlikely you'll have the time to work through it, a better tool is to look at the level of vocabulary you're using.

Using more complex vocabulary convey one of two messages to the recipient of your communique:  
1. That you consider him or her to be a well-educated person who can comprehend your language, a colleague of shared background; or
2. That you're a pretentious wanker.

Clearly therefore one must be careful about if, when and to what extent one turns up the Fog!

THE UPPER CASE

Still, regardless of the practicalities, the rationale and the plain good sense of simpler English, I believe there is also a very good case for choosing more advanced elements of our lingo should the opportunity arise.

Where appropriate, I am passionate about allowing communicators to indulge their vocabulary.  For example, I was beside myself recently when, upon watching that cinematic masterpiece 'The Ugly Truth', in a movie that had more references to oral sex than I care to mention, Katherine Heigl's character actually uses the word 'scatalogical' [It means filthy].

Literature, in particular, remains the key vehicle for the protection and even expansion of our language yet it's contentious that so many writers are routinely copy-edited down to the most basic of vocabulary.

The best example I have of this is my own journey in writing my first novel. Some time ago, I despatched my first draft to a manuscript appraisal agency for comment. This was some months after the Tsunami that devastated parts of the globe and I tell you this only because in that manuscript, and in the context of my story, I committed the heinous crime of using a word I was told was just 'too big'. That word was "seismic". I'm sorry. But hadn't we just had a tsunami involving an earthquake and, um, do you think maybe even a moron with carpet-burn on his knuckles might have been familiar with that word? Apparently not.

The point is that, as communicators, we should not be afraid of branching out from the comfort zone of our usual vocabulary. We should not be averse to dipping our nibs into that great lake of words to catch ourselves a word or a phrase that might stretch the reader's grasp of their own language. Certainly archaic, senescent or even antediluvian forms of the language should be avoided but how deleterious could be the effects of more elevated forms of the vernacular?

Successful, published writers particularly have the power to vouch for their words and they should!  Even if many words will not be understood by everyone, I believe that one role of literature is to inform and to educate. Some more complex, unusual or multi-syllabic words may even be appropriate in some contexts.

We cannot be reduced to mono-syllabic Neanderthals by a popular culture that daily struggles with even the basics of grammar.

As writers and communicators from all walks of life, we cannot let the English language go down without at least a little tussle.

As readers, we can support literature and other art forms that challenge both our language and our thinking.

Sure, read "Twilight" and download Foxy Bonkstar's animated boobs, but in between, forage amongst the pages of 'literature'.

You may be surprised at how many good stories are out there that hook you deeper into the rich sea that is the English language.

Now go fish!

Go Ahead, Make my Cliche

As someone with the blood of a mongrel coursing through her veins, part Scottish, Ceylonese and Belgian, I'm very sensitive to one of the cruelest criticisms against a writer, if not a human being - and that is, that one has sunk to the level of a cliche.

Cliches of course, breed like rabbits. One minute you're wandering around cool as a cucumber, thinking you're just the ant's pants because you stand out from the crowd, the next it seems that whatever you think or say is basically yesterday's news.

Now if you're poorly read, you probably don't have a prayer of spotting a cliche. Because it is only to the avid reader that a cliche will stick out like dog's balls.

Let me give you an example as to the utility of reading. Years ago, in 1982 to be specific, I was doing a creative writing subject at university. I wrote one of those bizarre stories that I still write today, bizarre, unusual, and worthy of my Scottish/Belgian/Ceylonese roots when I was mortified to have one of my painstakingly constructed metaphors circled in red pen and the word 'CLICHE' written next to it by my lecturer (incidentally, a well-known Brisbane poet).

My metaphor was this: "His hands fluttered as nervous doves."

Well, imagine my disgust when later in 1985, I was reading Peter Carey's award winning 'Illywhacker' only to find the exact same metaphor except in this instant, the fellow's hands weren't doves but birds.

PETER CAREY's editor did not pick up his cliche which had clearly been ripped off an 18-year-old's term assignment!

Indeed, the comparison of hands, with their capacity for infinite movements and the natural formation of wings by fingers is no great stretch for a writer.

I forgave Carey his calumny but my point is that it if it was difficult for the editor of a major work to identify a cliche then, how difficult must it be now?

Cliches are everywhere these days, packaged as 'archetypes', 'stereotypes' and 'formulae.' Regardless of how hard you push the envelope, in advertising, cinema and most creative forms, there's a sense of having seen it all before. Of having been there and done that.

That's why cliche spotting can be both a sport and a satisfying past time, whether you're a writer or not, and you should jump at the chance to find and exterminate these annoying critters, no holds barred.

Alternatively, if you're really hot to trot on that piece of imagery, with some sleight of hand that old cliche could have a new lease on life.

For example let's look at: "His hands fluttered as nervous doves."

The metaphor may metamorphosise with some tweaking into a host of alternatives.

His digits, fat as beaks, flicked here and there like toucans with tourettes. Perhaps. Or his fingers groomed imaginary wings. Maybe. Or his hands imagined shadow eagles. Hmm, it has potential. Or his fingers ruffled angry feathers. Better.

Culling the loathesome cliche is part of the hard work of writing. If it means you've got to get back to the drawing board, then such is life. After all, nothing worthwhile was ever easy.