Society of the Hobbling

• John Jenkins
• May 13, 2005
• 6:30 pm

All of these are examples of how, as a society, we have increased the amount of work and time spent on communication. For some unknown reason we think it is such a good idea to fill our day with wasted time.

In a room of 100 people, how many people do you think have the first name John? I would be willing to bet more than one. In that same room of 100 how many people have the last name Jenkins (barring John's own family members)? While there may be more than one, I would be willing to say that the number of people with the last name Jenkins is far less than the number with the first name John.

When we talk about dates throughout time, why do we always start of by saying December 7th, 1941? There are any number of Decembers throughout time. It makes more sense to say 1941, December 7th. From the first word your brain is propelled back 64 years, then to the next of that year, and lastly the specific day. Using the way we speak currently, anyone you talk to will have no idea reference till you get to the end of the date when you finally state what year.

Time fails the same as dates. 6:30.... Ok morning or afternoon? Then, again, at the end we get the reference... PM.

In all of these cases the listener is required to retain the complete context of what is being said, till the very end when they then have to filter back through the retained information and reasymbol using proper context.

I have worked with multiple programming languages and I can say without a doubt that I have saved so much time by simply working with a drill-down language rather than a drill-out language. Here is an example...

Drill-down
_window("Main").element("text1").text.line[4].word[1]


Drill-out
the word 1 of the line 4 of the element "text1" of the window "main"


Look at most any form you might fill out these days, such as at the doctors. Last name first. Because it is much easier to locate when the proper information is presented first.

Another example of wasting our time while communicating is using redundant or superfluous words. Here are a few examples.

• I was very surprised.
• It was a super huge event.
• She was extremely happy.

Lets rework these by removing the superfluous words and using proper words.

• I was flabbergasted.
• It was a enormous event.
• She was ecstatic.

Sure these are bigger words, but there is a reason they were created!

I suggest reading The Evasion-English Dictionary