When two persons are engaged in a conversation, it is normal for one of the person to assume that the other person knows or understands clearly what he or she is saying and hence omits certain words which are actually necessary. But this is not always so because there are many meanings to a single word and how sure are we that the other person has fully understood what we meant. Misunderstanding the meaning of words can cause serious problems like relationship break-ups, quarelling, wounded feelings and friendship break-ups.
For example, once I attended a family gathering and there one of my aunts was talking to my mother. As she was talking about someone she assumed that my mom would know who she is talking about and started saying " You know I met that person that we met that day in Midvalley when I went to the market this morning." My mom did not know who she was referring to so she stopped my aunt and asked her. Then only we knew who she was referring to.
Another incident happened to me when I went to the theatre a few days ago. I went to the concessions to buy popcorn and as I was rushing I asked the person at the counter "One large". The person stared at me and I said "One large" again. Still he was staring at me and then when I said "One large popcorn", he understood and smiled at me. After that, I was thinking how stupid of me to assume that the person knows that I am referring to the popcorn. "One large" could mean pepsi, water bottle, potato chips or popcorn.
From these incidents, I have understood that to avoid situations like these, we have to:
1) Ask the other person if he/she understood what we said
2) Try not to omit words
3) State our message as clearly as possible
4) Observe facial expressions when talking, to detect uncertainty in the other person
5) If we do not understand what the other person is saying, ask the person to clarify your doubts
Posted by : A.Padmassini A/P V.Anand
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