What Did You Say?

Interpretation can be defined as an explanation or conceptualization by a critic of a work of literature, painting, music, or other art form; or something that serves to explain or clarify. The interesting and often funny thing is how we interpret one another in our day to day activities. It is hard enough to try and interpret spoken language while interacting with our friends and family, but even harder to interpret someone we don’t know well, like a salesperson, co-worker, or tech support operator.

Now throw in sarcasm, politics and religion and it’s a wonder we understand each other at all at times. Language is constantly evolving, and English is the best known example of this. Expressions, colloquialisms, deviations, and derivations illustrate the ever-changing complexity of the English language. The language adopts hundreds of new words per year, as they evolve via use and misuse alike, coincidentally "blog" was picked as word of the year in 2004 by Merriam-Webster.

Technology has added new factors to hinder the way we interpret each other. Emails, instant messages, and text messages are just some of the mediums causing some of us wondering, "What the hell was he/she saying?"

A common problem, and one that I just experienced, is what is the sender trying to say in an email, a commonly misinterpreted item. Emails are usually written very quickly, not proof read and not very detailed, which can cause a great deal of misinterpretation. For this very reason, a piece that I had written had been misinterpreted, but upon re-reading what I had written I could see how it could be misunderstood.

When you eliminate the subtle nuances of speech such as tone, inflection, and implication, you lose and important piece of the puzzle. The reader can get frustrated, confused, and even angry if they do not understand what the sender is trying to say. Sometimes a follow up email, a phone call, or speaking in person is the only way to clear up the confusion. We live in a complicated world, and these forms of technology are not making interpreting each other any easier.