The importance of "I"

[kittysunlover]

Today, I ate my lunch in the break room at the branch I was just visiting to help out for a couple of days. In my usual visual exploration of the room, I noticed a sign that read as follows:

A short course in human relations:THE SIX MOST IMPORTANT WORDS

Comments

[queengerbil]

As a law student, it's the word I hate the most. When I'm doing oral arguments, I have to remember to not say, "I believe the court should do X because..." Instead, I'm supposed to drop the first part and just say, "The court should do X because..." It's really hard to not say I!

[kittysunlover]

Well, it has its uses and it has its places to avoid. I can see why you'd want to avoid personal pronouns in general when speaking as a law advocate - you're not actually a person in the court, you're a representative for a person/the law/state/some fact or organization. I think the more important word you're avoiding is "believe" - we're dealing in an arena of fact, not opinion. You're not there to convince anyone of your opinions, you're there to convince them of truth and justice, etc.

But you can translate a lot of what I said from "I" to "My client" if you're representing someone. Same general idea.

[sysiphan]

Crazy. This was in a school in Ranthambore I went to this week and I had the exact same thought process, right down to the mediator example. If you don't mind, I might print this and send it to the org. :p

GMTT still and forever. <3

[kittysunlover]

I don't mind at all :) Let me know if they respond, lol.

<3 <3