Say What You Mean

Why is it so difficuilt for people to just say what they mean? It usually depends on the topic of course, but I can tell you this much without a doubt in my mind, plenty of misunderstandings would and can be avoided if people would seriously just say exactly what they mean to say.

Now being less vague about what I am referring to (I am going to say what I mean! You see!) I often find that people like to rely on inferrence and like to imply things instead of being explicit. This is a bad habit in my opinion because it leads to miscommunication or misunderstanding which can result in error; and ultimately possibly end in hatred or anger. Since that is the case I think it makes more sense to be explicit rather than implicit. This mirrors my philosophy on programming languages by the way, better to be strongly typed (explicit) rather than to be dynamically typed (implicit).

The only time it is okay to imply something is when it doesn't matter or when you are on such a personal and healthy level with someone they will understand what you mean simply by the look on your face, the gloss of your eyes, squint, grunt or whichever manorism that you may posess. My mother and I can communicate by looking at each other, we can say whole sentences by a glance or hand gesture. That is implied communication. I do the same with some friends and I do this plenty with my wife. I have a hard time speaking in the morning because of my breathing problems. My throat usually feels like it is on fire in the morning so I don't want to talk to anyone, I will glance, point and grunt usually.

I don't like being lead on or taken for a ride when someone can just be frank with me and tell me what they really mean or want to say. I find it more valuable for someone to be 100% honest rather than was my time. Essentially when people don't get straight to the point, it means they are intentionally or unintentionally witholding crucial information from you. An example of unintentional is when you are reading a crappy text book that won't teach you the lesson you so desire to learn, instead it throws in useless nonsense about history of what you want to learn instead of flat out teaching you. An example of intentional is when you are speaking to someone and they have something you need, such as a crucial piece of information in order for you to do your job, but instead of just telling you what it is you have to deal with 50 questions, blank stares, a story of bullshit or some equivallent bout of annoyance.