Eating hot dogs with relish
Do you eat hot dogs with relish? Before you answer, ask yourself if you really understand the question. Is it asking if you add a condiment made of chopped pickles to your hot dog? Or, is the question asking about how much pleasure you experience when eating a hot dog, whether or not you choose to add the pickle condiment?
Word choice is an important component of communication, particularly when context is missing. A quick story will illustrate my point.
One evening we invited friends, who happened to be from Australia, to our house for dinner and board games. One of the games we played was Talking Tango, in which partners create a sentence by alternately saying one word at time to describe the selected mystery word. The goal is to have the other players correctly guess the mystery word from the sentence clue. Sounds easy, right?
Not always. You and your partner can't discuss the word or what approach you will take to create the sentence. And you have a different partner each turn. So it can be difficult for two partners to be in sync, which I found out the hard way.
When paired with one of our guests, we had to create a sentence to get the other players to guess the word "Bologna" (each word on the choice card is capitalized, which is critical to what came next). I saw the word and immediately begin hearing "My bologna has a first name; it's O-S-C-A-R." So I'm thinking luncheon meat. My partner, however, who had spent a good amount of time traveling the world, read it as the city in Italy. You can imagine the trouble we had trying to create our sentence. When our time ran out without a correct guess and we revealed the word and realized we had interpreted the word in two very different ways, we all burst into laughter as our strange sentence began to make sense!
So the next time you are writing an email or engaging in a conversation, think carefully about the words you choose. Consider how the reader or listener might interpret your words. Choose your words so that if they have alternate meanings, it is clear which meaning you intend. If the response to your message isn't what you were expecting, confirm with the other parties that you are all on the same page as to meaning and context.
And the next time you eat a hot dog, may it be with the exact relish you desire.