(Jeff Goslin <autockr@comcast.net> uttered
> "Rick Scott" <rick@shadowspar.dyndns.org> wrote:
>
>> If the discussion merits it, I'll hit up the dictionary or
>> thesaurus while I compose my response, to make sure that the words
>> I'm using really do convey the meaning I intend, or to find the
>> term that best expresses the shade of meaning that I'm after.
>
> Yikes. That's cheating! Everything I write is directly from my
> head. I don't even spellcheck my posts!

Come to think of it, I eschew the spellchecker as well. I figure
that I deserve a bit of chiding if I let an egregious error slip by.
Besides, I can soak a few spelling flames every now and again.

Oh, my, there's those arcane words sneaking in there again... =)



> Besides, you seem intelligent enough that if you put down the
> thesaurus, I think you'd find that your vocabulary did ample justice
> to the thoughts you were trying to convey.

Uhm, thanks! I can definitely do without (in fact, I'm not using the
thing in this post) but I'm just a bit preoccupied with precise use
of language and attempting to convey just the right meaning. At any
rate, I try to use the thing as a resource, as opposed to a crutch.



> Luckily, I have very little trouble expressing myself, in either
> verbal or written forms. I've run into a few people who I would
> consider otherwise intelligent on the surface but who are so careful
> with what they say that they end up sounding like retards,
> literally. That's something you might want to watch out for.
> Instead of grasping for the best word to describe a given thought,
> simply grab the best word you can think of at the time.

....which is what I do. It just gets under my skin a bit that the
word I can come up with in a reasonable time frame might not be the
most `optimal' or `eloquent' one. =)



>> The flow of your writing communicates this. I've noticed that in
>> your replies, you won't address anything discussed below the section
>> to which you're responding.
>
> There are actually two reasons for that. The first is speed. I
> write fast, I talk fast, I think fast(on the other hand, I move
> slow). I don't want to edit, re-edit, go back, re-read the post,
> make sure everything is spiffy and neetokeen, and take twenty
> minutes composing a post.

It will come as no surprise to find out that I tend more towards
deliberate thought, writing, and speech. However, I've also grown to
appreciate the fact that there are times when haste is appropriate,
and on the whole I don't have a problem coming up with a decision so
long as I can take refuge in the fact that I made the best choice
available at the time. Since usenet isn't a realtime medium, though,
I appear to tend towards the deliberate...



> The second, and more important one, is that I like my usenet posts
> to sound like a conversation.

Again, it comes across, not just in the style of individual postings,
but in the number and frequency of them.

I think I'm catching an inkling of a McLuhan-esque `hot media' vs
`cool media' discussion coming on here, but I'm too tired to treat it
intelligently at the moment. =)



Rick
--
key CF8F8A75 / print C5C1 F87D 5056 D2C0 D5CE D58F 970F 04D1 CF8F 8A75
Millions long for immortality who do not know
what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
:Susan Ertz