photo by me

Originally posted on my main site: life inchoate.

How closely do you consider the words that you use in your blog? Or your e-mail? Or your IM? Or in your handwritten letters?

I think that in each of these cases, you might consider your word choices a bit differently.

I know that I think about what I’m going to write in a handwritten letter because it takes time. I don’t want to mess it up and have to start over, wasting a piece of paper.

In IM, I shoot things off and then think later. In e-mail, depending on who it is going to, I may shoot it off – but if it’s a serious work situation, I think about it carefully, usually letting it sit in my draft box for a little while before sending it.

I usually contemplate what I’m going to write in my blog for a day or so and then put it down here.

I am thinking about this subject this morning, though, because of something I heard on NPR.

I heard 2 different reporters talking about the shake up in the Blair administration. One reporter said that Blair was bringing trusted people home to be closer to him to assist him. She said that Jack Straw was coming home from foreign service to help Blair with the Parliament.

The next reporter stated, “Straw Replaced!”

They are two very different connotations. They mean very different things.

People were moved around. Straw’s position is now different than it was yesterday. Was his role as Foreign Secretary filled by someone else? Yes (Margaret Beckett, btw, the first woman to fill that position). Was he ousted? Not in any way. He has a new position. That’s not being replaced. That’s being moved.

I think it’s important to think critically about the way we use words. We may say one thing and mean another entirely.