(no subject)
I'm still seething.
I am aware that my speech pattern could do with a few less conjuncitves and, more importantly, less apologies. But at a certain point you just have to be honest and say what's what. If I don't have a book, I don't have it. I also may have no idea what the book might be, if the customer only gives me a name or a vague title, whether I'll be able to order it, whether it's out of print, &c. I have no computer, I can only rely on my memory, the catalogues from the publishing houses and sometimes, but not every time a question arises, can call one of the other shops and ask them to look something up. If I know the customer and they aren't in a hurry I can look things up at home and get back to them, which IMO is already way above and beyond the call of duty. There are not enough not-negative, not-weak phrases to gloss this over, and at some point attempting to do so becomes embarrassing for both parties involved. And sometimes a 'sorry' or a 'regrettably' are in order, IMO.
I hate this abuse of language. An outright lie is better than this vague, suggestive obfuscation of facts that erases shades of expression and obscures, blurs and sugar-coates facts. Language should be used as precisely as possible. If you lie you're at least aware that you're doing so, but this manipulative violation of language that operates somewhere in the grey spaces between truth and lie taints. It's dangerous. And then the same people train politicians to sell themselves in exactly the same way, and there's no admitting to uncertainties or the existence of complex facts, because then, god forbid, you'd have to use words like 'maybe'. And the more people are exposed to this kind of language, the more it messes with their way of thinking.
I'm ok with 'This book is sold out' instead of 'I don't have this book', if 'don't' has to be avoided at all cost, but 'I hope' does not ever equal 'I'm convinced' and to replace the one with the other in total disregard of the different meaning feels wrong to me on such a fundamental level I can't even begin to adequately explain. Dirty, somehow. Sometimes a conjunctive, a negation or words like 'maybe' are necessary, which is why most languages did develop them in the first place.
A couple of hours sleep would be nice tomorrow morning, but I think I need a morning run even more, to work off some of the aggression and frustration.