Sunday, February 09, 2003

Drivel:  The more I think about my earlier post about the art of word selection, the more the whole thing makes sense to me.  The problem for me has been that I have not been feeding my brian, so nothing has been coming out.  Writing and the art of word selection is the utimately demonstration of human processing power.  The more one does it, the more efficient and effective one becomes at it.  You need good sources of information with that stimulate processing and the activity of writing and word selection.  As I am writing this, it makes a ton of sense -- to me, any way.  No wonder programmers also like writing -- writing in English must be like a vacation from programming that acheives the same level of intellectual stimulation.  (OK, I may be rambling now.  Please keep in mind I am sitting in the Los Angeles airport right now at 11:15pm on a Friday night.) [X-log] 2:34:23 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Drivel:  I have been reading Leadership by Rudi Giuliani.  In one section he explains how he loves the art of word selection in speech and written word.  I thought to myself when I read this that only a lawyer, reporter, or author would agonize as much as he described over a single word.  Over the past week I tested my hypothesis and found it not to be true.  A number of business people I know agonize over every word in a single slide of a huge presentation.  I am still not sure what value agonizing over every single word produces or at what point one should continue to agonize or move on.  In order to enjoy this type of agony (for me it is truly agony) one must have an elevated understanding of the English language, a love for the language, and a drive to constantly tune their skills using the language.  I believe that there is a perception that intelligence and the ability to manipulate language are directly related.  Are they?  I am not sure. [X-log] 2:33:43 PM    trackback []     Articulate []