Say What You Mean
Saying what you mean is not always easy. You have to consider your audience, you have to know your topic, and you have to have a solid grasp of the English language.
Communicating better takes work. It’s not for slackers. You have to care about the words that you use and how you use them.
It helps to wonder whether common words and phrases are the correct ones. For example, fast checkout lines often display “10 items or less” signs, but this common phrase is incorrect. The correct phrase is “10 items or fewer” because “fewer” should be used when you have distinct items that cannot be subdivided. In contrast, “less” should be used for quantities, such as miles, that can be subdivided (e.g., “5 miles or less to the next rest stop”).
If you don’t have a natural or developed curiosity about words and phrases, you’ll ignore opportunities to write or speak more clearly. When a physical dictionary is not handy but I’m online, I like to use dictionary.com. For example, the telco world often refers to a customer’s physical location as the “premise”; dictionary.com has a superb explanation about why the correct word is “premises” instead. As an aside, it fascinates me that the “Your car will be towed.” sign at a McDonald’s restaurant will use the proper word (”premises”) to refer to its location whereas a telecommunications company such as AT&T or Verizon would use the incorrect word (”premise”) to refer to a customer’s location.
Saying what you mean doesn’t depend only on word choice. You have to punctuate correctly, too. The book Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a humorous guide to how to use apostrophes, commas, etc., and it’s filled with hilarious example after example of changed meanings when an apostrophe or comma is misplaced. You can find links to this and other recommended books here.
Studying a foreign language can help you to write better, too. For example, if you study a language such as Spanish deeply enough, you’ll become acquainted — or re-acquainted — with linguistic terms such as indicative, subjunctive, imperative, and conditional. My own college coursework in German helped me tremendously to put names on English-language concepts that I never knew or that I had learned and then forgotten several years earlier. Studying Spanish much later, I yet again became re-acquainted with many of these concepts. For example, knowing — or at least being aware of — these concepts has helped me to question whether I should write “If I was” or “If I were” in a given situation.
Your communication will improve when you become more aware of slang words and phrases. It helps to know that “fixing to” (or “fixin’ to”) is regional slang for “preparing to”. It helps to appreciate that “you guys” and “you’s guys” and “y’all” are regionalisms for “you”. It helps to appreciate that not everyone will understand “how the cow ate the cabbage”. It helps to appreciate that “knee-high to a grasshopper” won’t be understood immediately by everyone.
Developing an outsider’s perspective can help you to communicate better, too. For example, “woulda, coulda, shoulda” means nothing unless you know that it’s an American pop-psychology phrase and is short for “would have, could have, should have” (which became “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve”, which with slurring became “woulda, coulda, shoulda”). “Don’t ’should’ on me.” is another American pop-psychology phrase, but this one is rooted in a ruder expression. If you’re writing for or speaking to an international audience, being sensitive to these Americanisms will put you on the path to being better understood.
Developing a curiosity about definitions of words is another way to become a better communicator. A little knowledge can lead you astray, though. For example, you might know that the prefix “a” often means “without” or “not” or “the opposite of” (e.g., “typical” vs. “atypical”). However, would it be correct to say that the opposite of “apathetic” is “pathetic”? Similarly, you might believe at first glance that the opposite of “disgruntled” is “gruntled”, but try looking up the latter in a dictionary; you won’t find it.
As you become more curious about words, you might find that you are developing a new hobby: noticing how people’s surnames seem to have influenced their occupations. “Dr. Butts, Proctologist” comes to mind. At this writing the surname of the Houston, Texas, chief of police is Hurtt; that sounds intimidating, doesn’t it? This fun little hobby very likely will feed your curiosity about words, so it could make you a better communicator as well as funnier at cocktail parties.
As you become more curious about words, you might also become more curious about American English in general. I have a hypothesis about what’s happening with American English, and I call it, “Devolution toward Simpler”. You can follow me on this site as I publish observations that seem to confirm this hypothesis. I have no idea whether a Ph.D. in the linguistics world already has proposed a hypothesis like mine, but I don’t really care. My goal is to explain what I observe. When American English at times seems to be going down the toilet, the hypothesis that I’m working to prove gives me comfort that I can at least predict how it will go down the toilet. You might have your own hypothesis or two; my hope is that by discussing mine I’ll help you to step back, get a bigger picture, and become a better communicator.
Finally, please don’t let “I wasn’t an English major.” dominate your thoughts to the point that you abandon your dream of becoming a better communicator. There are plenty of English majors who can’t compare to what you can achieve when you set your mind to it.
