To be fair, not everyone is boring during an explanation. Lots of people explain things with a condescending tone and exaggerated hand movements that merely makes me want to punch them in the face.
The problem is that a fraction of one's listeners are sometimes stupid, and they ruin it for everyone by demanding slow, hand-gestury, repetitive crap.
If I can explain 1 to everybody briefly I think it'll make the whole rest of the thread a lot more straightforward and comprehensible, especially if, like me, you had initially had some doubts about whether you would really be able to grasp the mechanics of this thread given that comment's somewhat terse and incomprehensible nature. On the veldt, you see, there was a great deal of work to do, whether child rearing, mammoth hunts, or armchair (technically termite mound) sociology. It was therefore very much in the interest of early hunter/gatherer people to express to the intellectually weak members of the tribe that explaining things that everybody should know already was fucking boring. As our tone betrays our mood in other spheres, of course, it betrayed us in this one, and those tribe members able to thrive in this milieu were able to successfully communicate utter boredom at the prospect of explaining something, listening to something be explained, cavalierly dismissing the plaintive request of an explainee to have it explained why explaining, while explanatory, is so dull. Thus, the cycle of life continues.
I write all my blog entries with that tone in mind.
You could ask PK or Newt to explain something and see if they use the tone you find offputting.
The sufficiently boring cavemen would put their listeners to sleep, then make babies with their wives and steal their food.
Seriously though, people aren't usually explaining things to get across information. It's all about the signalling, intelligence or "seriousness" or et cetera.
It sounds like Ogged's latest date did not go so well.
You what doesn't make sense to me?
"You what doesn't make sense to me?" .......
Questions with self-referential Cretan liar paradox answers for $200, Alex.
You know what doesn't make sense to me? Xlaport dbasfa lkicv gbfv.
Ben, you dolt, it's an anagram of 'TV flags fox black drab VIP.' Glad I could clear that up for you.
This post closely approximates what I hear when I'm drinking ... while being deaf ... and misreading the lips of other people drinking ... but I applaud ogged for the accuracy of his portrayal of the lives of the deaf.
HE STANDS FOR US!
HE STANDS FOR US!
(Right? You're not just being willfully inscrutable, are you?)
You know what doesn't make sense to me? Easily disprovable generalizations.
14: eh if you heard more you'd realize it's more like the cocktail party solution.
15 contradicts itself remarkably well.
Is ogged talking about the sort of John Madden over-explanation tone? That's kind of annoying.
19: but imagine John Madden making ribald pillow talk!
17: Eh? What's that you said? I'm too busy fooling fools into thinking I hear their shit to pay attention to what they're saying. West Coast, baby.
19: If he was going for a Madden impersonation, well, the post's damn genius.
I'm reading the post in a Dick Vitale voice and I have to say, it changes the tenor of the post entirely.
I highly recommend the Andy Rooney voice, too.
Oh, and George W. Bush if you switch "intonations" to "talkin's".
I find that it helps to roll your eyes first, as if to say, "I can't fucking believe I have to explain this." It helps to capture the listener's attention.
22-25: why doesn't my computer have those? All it has is this singsong crap.
And if not, they leave and slam the door and you don't have to bother.
Actully, leaving "intonations" for Bush is better. It's like it was his Word-A-Day Calendar word for today and, dadblurnit, he's a gunna use it.
Yes, you have to pause and give a little triumphant grin after you say the word.
That the intonations humans seem to adopt universally when they're explaining things are precisely those intonations that seem to bore listeners out of their minds.
Änd yet Crooked Timber remains inexplicably popular.
i'd have to say the people who don't get shit are much more boring than the explanations.
and the boringness is much less about 'explaining' and much more about being 'serious'
Oh, wow, we have spam. Personally, I'm honored.
Recall the reaction many folks had to Al Gore's performance in the first debate in 2000; god bless him, he just couldn't avoid seeming a pedant.
There is a saying in politics, "If you're explaining, you're losing."
36: You may not personally emit "low, mordant chuckles", but it is worth a stroll through Daily Howler to understand the extent to which the press manufactured that reaction.
Jeff Greenfield for instance:
Yes, the instant polls showed a narrow Gore victory. But it was the kind of victory the villainous wrestler scores with a questionable chokehold. A lot of voters were saying, "Yeah, he won--but I don't like that guy."
Statement based on no discernable input or data from "a lot of voters".
5 makes sense to me. Especially the part about termite mound sociology.
this is the lecturer's dilemma.
i tell my student's that my teaching abilities were honed by having toddlers: i learned how to put people to sleep with my voice.
It's like it was his Word-A-Day Calendar word for today and, dadblurnit, he's a gunna use it
Implies a self-improving, not self-satisfied impulse which seems false to me.
Naw - word-a-day calendars, over the age of -say- 10, are self-satisfaction masquerading as self-improvement.
Ogged's observation is absolutely correct. To remedy this, our schools must teach students to always talk like Billy Mays when explaining things.
I figured W would have to come up here. My favorite explanation of his (perhaps) most infuriating speech technique - very forcefully explaining the obvious in simplistic terms - is that he's simply echoing how the topic was explained to him.
"You see, it's a dessert fork. You use it to eat dessert with. Maybe some in the Democrat Congress don't understand that, but I do, and I think the American people do."