Monday, May 5, 2014

One of the reasons why I love words...

"No internet is better than slow internet."

Do you read this as:

1) There is no such internet that can be better than slow internet because slow internet is the best.


or

2) Being devoid of internet is better than having slow internet. (Maybe a better investment of time is to be doing something else rather than to sit in front of a screen and wait for a site to load and frustrate yourself and curse at nonexistent users and pull your hair out. Maybe.)

?

This doesn't happen quite often but when the opportunity presents itself, I find words to be extremely manipulative. You can read this in two, perhaps more, different ways. If I had said it aloud, the experience of of hearing the words would have been different. I would have raised the pitch of my voice and emphasized the "no internet" part, leading you to automatically assume the first option. But if I had enunciated the "slow internet" more, maybe you would have heard the second option. A reader reads in his own voice and who you are shapes what you perceive as a reader.

I wish I could describe this to you more eloquently as a writer. In due time.