I envy the individual who, without the need for coarse or vulgar or oversimplified language, or the need for vocal stumbling and stuttering and ums and ahs and vocal fry, can fully articulate his views on a topic about which he feels strongly.
For example, if I tried to explain my opinion of how odious and repulsive an individual Donald Trump is I get so tongue tied that I do one of two things:
- I refrain from entering upon the question at all, or
- I revert to bad language and verbal and vocal inarticulation.
I am tremendously frustrated about this, and it’s not just Donald Trump that causes this-no, anything about which I feel strongly has this effect.
I want to conquer this problem, if not entirely, at least to some extent.
Unfortunately, this problem developed years ago when I was going to school and I have never had the desire to do anything about it.
I do now, though, because I appreciate the value of crystal-clear communication through the use of cogent, well chosen, appropriate, accurate thoughts and words. I hope it’s not too late; I don’t think so if I work at it but the first step in addressing the problem is to recognise it.
The next step is to do something about it, and I suspect, but may stand corrected, that the first step may be to articulate the thoughts and feelings in words. I say ‘may’ because there is a danger that the two disciplines-oral communication and written communication-are completely different and one will not necessarily be improved as a consequence of improving the other.