Comment by godelski
7 hours ago
> The number of times I see my words interpreted as though my choice in words had been imprecise
That's because the words you use are imprecise and have multiple valid interpretations. Not because a lack of effort on your part but because that's how natural languages work. Natural languages are extremely fuzzy. Every single word is overloaded.
It's why it's important to speak you your audience. The goal of the listener isn't to interpret the words you say literally but to determine what's in your head. There's 3 parts of communicating: what's in your head, the words you use, how someone else interprets. Each transition is lossy.
Fwiw, this is also why we invented formal languages like math and programming (a subset of the former). Because formal languages are exceptionally precise (although the more "high level" a programming language is the closer it is to natural language, so it becomes less precise). That precision becomes necessary when discussing things that are abstract and complex. The pedantic nature is what makes them difficult to wield but also is the defining feature, not a flaw.
But we should neither treat natural languages as having the precision of formal ones. That would be as grave an error as abdicating interpretation.
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667...
I think you are spot on and a lot of other comments sharing "I'm also so precise, and people don't get it and it's frustrating" are in fact the problem. It's arrogant to think you're that eloquent that there is not other interpretation to your words, and the problem must be with the reader. It only results in more inefficiency if you stick to that mindset.
These are probably the same people that say "everyone else's code smells" and think only they write the perfect code.