Nigel is dead on about one of the main differences between written and spoken messages.

A way to make a point about the differences between between verbal and electronic messages is part of an excercise from Interpersonal Communications.

" I Didn't Tell John You Were Stupid".

If you place the major emphasis on each word, one at a time as you read the sentence, you create a completely different message at each pass.

The emphasis on "I" implies someone else did...

The emphasis on "Tell" means I implied..


And so on...

There is also such an immediate quality in electronic communications that a lot of people (including me) don't spend a lot of time creating the message.

We all mean well...we just need to consider the impact and clarity of our messages.


Russ