Embracing Verbosity
A Whole Site Devoted to "Verbosity"? Well, How Verbose Is That?
This site is dedicated to something that's generally not considered "a good thing" - verbosity. Well, even if some people would concede that sometimes what is "verbose" may actually include something well worth saying (and even expanding upon or clarifying), most of the time when people use the word, "verbosity", it's not in a complimentary way.
The thing is, while I certainly haven't had the word thrown in my direction on a daily basis (or even on a annual or semi-annual basis) in my life; the fact is, when someone throws out that word in an "if-the-shoe-fits" kind of way, I'm pretty much usually uncomfortably aware that the shoe, indeed, does fit.
So often, when the word is thrown out toward anyone who might at all be able to walk well in that shoe, along with that word often comes implying (when the flinger-of-the-word is too polite to do more than imply) that the person who has a lot to say is "a blow-hard". Other suspected motives are that the person wants or needs attention. Then, of course, there's the unflattering suggestion that the person with a lot to say is a "know-it-all".
More benign, perhaps, than some of the motives suspected above, can be the simple belief that just plain isn't cool to have a lot to say. Maybe a lot of us get that message when we're teens and aiming to differentiate ourselves (in all our hoped for coolness) from talkative little kids AND from mothers who talk a lot in their attempt to "keep talking to their child" and/or their attempt to explain their reasoning (or reasoning in general) to their child(ren). Good mothers know they can't afford to be aloof when it comes to being a mother. Traditionally, many fathers (particularly of the past) had the luxury of remaining "cool-ly" aloof and verbally reserved when it came to their families. The wisdom and lack of "emotional generosity" in such parental behavior does not, of course, make for an ideal parent/child relationship. Still, in the eyes of some teens (especially those particularly taken by the coolness of not talking much), the verbally reserved (even withdrawn/witholding) father can appear a lot more cool than the mother who knows she doesn't have the luxury of being that "cool".
In any case, I've always been someone who has a lot to say. And, it has never had anything to do with the kinds of motives or personality flaws a lot of people seem to assume it does. While the world has managed to make me feel pretty self-conscious about it much of the time, and while I controlled my verbally-inclined urges more in my teens than I've ever done since becoming the mother of three (now grown) children, there's also a part of me that kind of enjoys what I see as a "high mental-energy level" combined with generally liking other people in the same way now as I did when I was a kid.
In other words, I'm a friendly person who has always had a lot to say. Now that I'm old enough to have three grown kids, I've been building up even more stuff to say over the decades of adult life. Generally, in offline and face-to-face conversation, I'm socially skilled enough to confine my verbal leanings to only those people close enough to me to know that I can't help the amount of words that keep on coming if/when the subject of conversation is one I find worth discussing. Actually, I've had several friends say how nice it is that we "always have such good conversations".
In online life, things are different. People don't me, and there are only so many laughing-face or rolling-eye emoticons a person can use in an attempt to convey some version of warmth in the typewritten (but usually grammatically correct and somewhat formal-looking) writing. To be honest, I really feel a little old to be using too many "LOL's"; and to be even more honest, I'm not technically LOL'ing as I type. "Ha ha" and "tee hee" aren't my style either. The point is, too many words written in reasonably formal English grammar can create the wrong impression about the person who has written them.
Then, too, the world is full of people who are going to "assign" incorrect and unflattering motivations/reasons for something done in a way that's different from the way they do things. People who generally like and respect other people, and who don't have the ego to believe that different from themselves must "have a problem" (or worse) generally assume the best of others. The human race, however, is full of people who dislike other people in general and/or who have egos that mean they like themselves (and their way of doing things) a little too much. So, what you get is a lot of people who measure others by whether they do things the same way as they do, and then who will imagine unflattering motives/reasons/problems "onto" innocent others who simply approach life, and interactions with others, differently than they do.
In any case, at this fairly late stage in the game that is my life (and after "living on" the Internet for several years now), I've finally decided to embrace my verbosity (or "high mental energy level" or "valuing of genuine communication" or even "verbal enthusiasm") - and for once in my life, stop feeling self-conscious about it.
That (in a coconut shell, as opposed to a nutshell) is what this site is about. Of course, the subject of verbosity, itself, is one on which even the most verbose of writers tends to have only so much to say; so because of that, I'll be including some examples of my own verbosity (in other words, writing about other stuff).
This site is dedicated to something that's generally not considered "a good thing" - verbosity. Well, even if some people would concede that sometimes what is "verbose" may actually include something well worth saying (and even expanding upon or clarifying), most of the time when people use the word, "verbosity", it's not in a complimentary way.
The thing is, while I certainly haven't had the word thrown in my direction on a daily basis (or even on a annual or semi-annual basis) in my life; the fact is, when someone throws out that word in an "if-the-shoe-fits" kind of way, I'm pretty much usually uncomfortably aware that the shoe, indeed, does fit.
So often, when the word is thrown out toward anyone who might at all be able to walk well in that shoe, along with that word often comes implying (when the flinger-of-the-word is too polite to do more than imply) that the person who has a lot to say is "a blow-hard". Other suspected motives are that the person wants or needs attention. Then, of course, there's the unflattering suggestion that the person with a lot to say is a "know-it-all".
More benign, perhaps, than some of the motives suspected above, can be the simple belief that just plain isn't cool to have a lot to say. Maybe a lot of us get that message when we're teens and aiming to differentiate ourselves (in all our hoped for coolness) from talkative little kids AND from mothers who talk a lot in their attempt to "keep talking to their child" and/or their attempt to explain their reasoning (or reasoning in general) to their child(ren). Good mothers know they can't afford to be aloof when it comes to being a mother. Traditionally, many fathers (particularly of the past) had the luxury of remaining "cool-ly" aloof and verbally reserved when it came to their families. The wisdom and lack of "emotional generosity" in such parental behavior does not, of course, make for an ideal parent/child relationship. Still, in the eyes of some teens (especially those particularly taken by the coolness of not talking much), the verbally reserved (even withdrawn/witholding) father can appear a lot more cool than the mother who knows she doesn't have the luxury of being that "cool".
In any case, I've always been someone who has a lot to say. And, it has never had anything to do with the kinds of motives or personality flaws a lot of people seem to assume it does. While the world has managed to make me feel pretty self-conscious about it much of the time, and while I controlled my verbally-inclined urges more in my teens than I've ever done since becoming the mother of three (now grown) children, there's also a part of me that kind of enjoys what I see as a "high mental-energy level" combined with generally liking other people in the same way now as I did when I was a kid.
In other words, I'm a friendly person who has always had a lot to say. Now that I'm old enough to have three grown kids, I've been building up even more stuff to say over the decades of adult life. Generally, in offline and face-to-face conversation, I'm socially skilled enough to confine my verbal leanings to only those people close enough to me to know that I can't help the amount of words that keep on coming if/when the subject of conversation is one I find worth discussing. Actually, I've had several friends say how nice it is that we "always have such good conversations".
In online life, things are different. People don't me, and there are only so many laughing-face or rolling-eye emoticons a person can use in an attempt to convey some version of warmth in the typewritten (but usually grammatically correct and somewhat formal-looking) writing. To be honest, I really feel a little old to be using too many "LOL's"; and to be even more honest, I'm not technically LOL'ing as I type. "Ha ha" and "tee hee" aren't my style either. The point is, too many words written in reasonably formal English grammar can create the wrong impression about the person who has written them.
Then, too, the world is full of people who are going to "assign" incorrect and unflattering motivations/reasons for something done in a way that's different from the way they do things. People who generally like and respect other people, and who don't have the ego to believe that different from themselves must "have a problem" (or worse) generally assume the best of others. The human race, however, is full of people who dislike other people in general and/or who have egos that mean they like themselves (and their way of doing things) a little too much. So, what you get is a lot of people who measure others by whether they do things the same way as they do, and then who will imagine unflattering motives/reasons/problems "onto" innocent others who simply approach life, and interactions with others, differently than they do.
In any case, at this fairly late stage in the game that is my life (and after "living on" the Internet for several years now), I've finally decided to embrace my verbosity (or "high mental energy level" or "valuing of genuine communication" or even "verbal enthusiasm") - and for once in my life, stop feeling self-conscious about it.
That (in a coconut shell, as opposed to a nutshell) is what this site is about. Of course, the subject of verbosity, itself, is one on which even the most verbose of writers tends to have only so much to say; so because of that, I'll be including some examples of my own verbosity (in other words, writing about other stuff).
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